After the Sea
by Colubrina
Summary: Draco and Hermione have become friends, and more than, when, after a weekend at the shore with Theo Nott, things start to get complicated, especially when they have him move into their flat. "He felt her fingers settle against his neck, move lightly back and forth on his skin. The book open, he began to slowly read aloud, words like balm, easing him into this place." Triad.
1. Prologue

**A/N - This is an alternate ending to my fic **_**The Die**_** starting at chapter 32 and branching off**_**. **_**In an ideal world, you'd read that first, then read this. On the off chance you'd rather not read 31 chapters in a different story just to start this one, I shall sum up…**

**. . . . . . . . . .**

_Seven years have passed since the war and the world, if not the people in it, are at peace. Harry Potter has retired to the countryside where, along with Ginny, he struggles to deal with anxiety. Ron and Lavender have also married and moved out of London and struggle with similar post-war issues. Hermione alone has opted to remain in the city, where she's used the generous financial reward the Ministry bestowed on her to open a rare book shop. _

_One night she spots Draco Malfoy, easily recognizable because of his hair, in the pub across the street from her shop. He's clearly been devastated by the war and has been trying to work up the courage to apologize to her, expecting only rejection. Instead of rejecting his tentative olive branch, and hoping she's found someone who won't dismiss her post-war fears as exaggerated, she invites him back to her flat, first for tea and then to stay. They become friends, able to understand and comfort one another's nightmares after the war. When Hermione realizes how much the wizarding world ostracizes Draco she impulsively drags him into public and drapes herself over him, pretending to be a couple in an attempt to use her own war heroine status to give him some protection. The attempt backfires and instead the gossip columns report that she's been imperioused by the former Death Eater. Hermione makes a deal with Rita Skeeter that she'll give the woman exclusive pictures in exchange for retracting the accusations against Draco and the couple appears at a charity ball to give the reporter her scoop. Meanwhile, Hermione and Draco have been slowly moving from friendship towards a more romantic relationship despite Draco's belief that he's too tainted and dangerous for anyone to trust or love._

_At the ball the couple are generally lauded as a post-war romantic fairy tale though several people are less sanguine about the relationship and hiss slurs or refuse to acknowledge the pair. Narcissa Malfoy publicly accepts the two, as do Lavender and Ron. They also meet Theodore Nott, who Draco has not seen in years. They later have Theo over for dinner and Hermione discovers she likes the guarded but flirtatious man because of the effect he has on Draco, who relaxes around his former school friend. She decides, working in league with Narcissa Malfoy, to try to fix Theo up with Luna Lovegood and thus invites both to a seaside cottage for a weekend. Luna is unable to attend because of a publishing deadline and so Draco, Hermione and Theo end up at an isolated cottage alone for the weekend._

_And so our story begins…_


	2. 1 - When (s)he Landed

**A/N – **_Warning: despicable people say despicable things in despicable ways; I do not personally condone Nott Senior's word choices. Also, some of this is recycled from _The Die_ so you may recognize some lines; the story will branch much more thoroughly off into its own world after this._

_. . . . . . . . ._

Theodore Nott was not having a great day or, for that matter, an especially great life. While he admitted that he couldn't recall another one, and, if he'd been drinking and was feeling especially honest, he would sometimes own that a tremendously large number of people had significantly worse lives, he still wasn't wholly pleased with his. On the one hand, he was – all modesty aside – brilliant and, he'd been told, acceptably attractive, and there was, of course, the independently wealthy thing. None of that was bad. On the other hand, he was supposed to go and visit his evil, abusive rat-bastard of a father today and any day that involved seeing Nott Senior was a day in which the bad outweighed the good. He cursed, not for the first time, that his sense of familial responsibility had been beaten – quite literally – into him with such thoroughness that he knew he'd be on edge until he went to see the wretched man.

The good part of that was that Nott Senior, barring one of his rare and unwelcome coherent days, was unlikely to know who he was and that would keep the verbal abuse generalized and unlikely to sting.

The bad part was that prison visits always left him in a shite mood and he was supposed to go out to Draco's cottage directly after. Draco and _Hermione's_ cottage, and if the two of them as a couple weren't enough to make your head spin, nothing would. Theo grabbed a book he's pulled from his library and wrapped in plain brown paper, making it look like nothing so much as mail-order pornography, and dropped it into his satchel; another thing that made his head spin, and which he'd therefore decided not to think about in any great detail, was how bloody much he liked Hermione Granger, liked her enough to give her a hostess gift he'd actually thought about rather than the standard pro-forma bottle of wine.

Liked her enough for a lot of things, none of which were likely to ever happen.

At least his father wouldn't have called him queer for that. Filthy mudblood lover, maybe, but not queer.

After eyeing the wine on the counter he decides to bring that too. You really couldn't ever trust Draco to have a decent vintage around. Or, at least, such had been the case in the past; the man had clearly changed in the past few years, what with actually leaving his apartment, talking to people, getting a girlfriend who wasn't some muggle slag he bamboozled for a week with Rimbaud before retreating back to his books and silence, but he doubted the man had changed enough to stock good wine.

Draco Malfoy. With Hermione Granger. The world was a very strange place.

. . . . . . . . . .

The prison had not improved in the last month.

Theo wondered sometimes what he thought he was accomplishing with these trips. His father had no idea who he was on bad days and on the good days, well, the good days were worse because then the man remembered how to hit him where it hurt most.

There was no way he could win. The bulk of society bluntly condemned him as a sympathizer because of these visits. More infuriating was the way seeing his father out of this grim sense of duty seemed to bring hope to the tattered remnants of actual Death Eater sympathizers; they saw in him the best thing they had for a next generation of pure blood leadership.

Theo Nott would rather eat glass.

"He's fairly coherent today," the guard had said when he'd arrived, as if that were a good thing.

"Oh goody," Theo had muttered, thankful he'd brought the wine, hoping he's not going to be a total arse all weekend after what promises to be one of the more unpleasant visits.

"How," Nott senior asked when the guard dragged him into the visitor's room, "is my faggot son today?"

Stretched out in the visitor's chair, Theo made an elaborate show of examining his nails. "Reasonably well, I think," he said, "Except I might have a bit of a problem."

"Oh?"

"The new manicurist – not exactly working out." He'd pretended to examine an imaginary rough spot on one nail with rapt attention then flicked at glance at his father, who was narrowing his eyes and getting redder. "Come now, pater mine, personal grooming is so very important, don't you agree?" He looked down at his shoes and admired the reflection of the light on the leather, turning a foot first one way and then the other. "What do you think of my new shoes?"

"Have you," the older man gritted his teeth, "found a bloody girl yet with all that poncy grooming, gotten me a decent heir?"

"Hmm. There were always so many bloody girls at the manor." Theo shook his head. "I really was hoping to track one down who wasn't covered in blood." He smiled, as if struck by a sudden thought. "I'll be seeing Draco Malfoy this weekend; he's got a new girl. Maybe I'll borrow her."

"Well, I'm sure Lucius' brat has the sense to stick with girls of quality," huffed Nott Sr.

"Oh yes," Theo went back to looking at his nails. "She's Hermione Granger." He waited but the reaction he'd hoped for doesn't come so he adds, "The muggle-born member of the golden trio."

Ah, there's the explosion.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco and Hermione were fighting – no, teasing each other – when Theo arrived at their cottage, still hostile from his encounter with his father. The man refused to consider that being the son of a Death Eater made dating, much less tracking down a wife, nearly impossible; no sensible woman wanted to gamble on him and he wanted nothing to do with the ones who found his Death Eater history perversely appealing.

He stood on the porch and listened to the two of them. He could overhear Hermione sputtering, "Is this some pureblood thing I'm supposed to know about? Because - "

"Because I can tell you," Draco sounded even more smug than usual, "that, if it's just the three of us at an isolated, seaside cottage for the weekend, Theo's going to assume that's on the table."

What's on the table? Theo dropped the case of wine on the porch and shook his hand, to get circulation back into his fingers."

"There are other bedrooms," Hermione was saying. "He's staying in one of the _other bedrooms_."

"Hullo," Theo called out from the porch, satchel still in one hand, and Hermione came spilling out the door, looking flushed. He tried not to be too obviously appreciative; ogling a mate's girl was generally considered poor form, even if she was in a fitted sundress that managed to simultaneously push things up that looked good pushed up and hold things in that looked good held in.

"Theo," she tucked a loose curl behind her ear. "You're a little earlier than I expected."

Obviously, he thought, as I caught you two in the midst of what sounded like a most intriguing argument.

"Is that a problem?" He reached into his bag for the book. "A little token of my appreciation in the form of an old – and probably cursed - book for you, my dove."

"You could never be a problem. And, after all, it's not every day a man gives me a cursed book so with this in hand I'd surely forgive you anything," she grins at him and then pulled the paper off her present. She looked at the book with some caution, shifting it back and forth, before carefully setting it down on the nearest table. "Where did you get this?"

"From the library at lovely Nott Manor, of course, everyone's first stop when searching for unpleasant and rare books; I take it from your cautious reaction that one's a tad nastier than I realized?" He took her hand and made an elaborate show of kissing her fingertips. "I'm sorry. If you ever wanted to come and liberate other volumes that interest you, I would be delighted, of course, to give you a private tour of the collection."

"Is that anything like 'come upstairs and see my etchings'?" Hermione turned from the book and dimpled at Theo who smirked wickedly back at her, still holding onto her hand.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. If, however, you are hinting you'd like to show me etchings I would never be so uncouth as to turn you down."

Draco has come out onto the porch as well and flung himself down into one of the myriad ratty chairs, drawling, "I thought you'd at least wait until after dinner, love. Let the man get his bearings first."

"Wouldn't manners dictate waiting until at least tomorrow?" Hermione tried not to laugh. "Besides, Draco, you already know how I feel about sand!"

Theo watched them banter, his mouth curled into an unexpected grin. He still couldn't quite believe how much better Draco was, how much better Hermione has made him. The man was laughing, flirting. Gods, he seemed wholly unconscious that wearing a short-sleeved shirt exposed his Mark. How had Draco found some woman willing to give him a chance, able to see past the brand on his arm?

"Sand does indeed get everywhere," was all he said, however.

"I can make other suggestions…" Draco lifted one corner of his mouth in a quirky grin and suggestively twitched his eyebrows and Theo repressed a smile. Some things, apparently, never changed. War, depression and general misery could all come and go but Draco Malfoy would still be a cocky bastard at heart.

"You are … impossible! And if you aren't careful you'll find me taking you up on your lewd hints and then we'll see how much you like it." Hermione rolled her eyes and tightened her grip on Theo's hand. "Take me to the beach, dear sir, or lose me forever?"

"Take you on the beach? But all the sand," he mockingly protested as he followed her down to the shore, Draco trailing behind them laughing the whole time, claiming to be merely improbable.

. . . . . . . . .

Draco had gone back up to the cottage to grab beer, leaving the two of them sitting together in the warm sand, when she dropped her unpleasant revelation.

"I'd invited someone here with us this weekend," she said, "but she couldn't make it. I think you'd like her - "

"You're matchmaking. For me," Theo said flatly, cutting her off. "Don't." He looked down at the sand, trying to control himself, control the spiraling rage that this woman – of all the people in the world of course it would have to be _this_ woman – had decided to try to find him a girlfriend. He didn't realize it was possible to feel this irrationally hurt. "I'm not someone people want, Hermione."

"But…"

"No." He shook his head, then mockingly blew her a kiss. "If I can't have you, my treasure, why would I settle for anyone else?"

She squinted at him in the bright light. "You're trouble."

"Always." His tone is clipped and tight.

She tipped her head and studied him. "Why," she asked, "are you so upset by this?"

He buried his face in his hands and rubbed right between his brows. "Because," he finally muttered, "I started the day with my wonderful father expressing his feelings on my duty to propagate again, a parental command he doesn't realize his own politics have rendered nearly impossible." His voice started to rise. "Because I've spent years watching women find somewhere else they really need to be every time they realize my father was – is – a Death Eater. Try that and you'll see how rapidly you decide that solitude is preferable to enduring visceral disgust. You and Draco are just about the only people who will give me the time of day, assuming we discount the people who are far, far too enthusiastic about my prison visits." He forced his voice back into control. "The terrible boredom, you know, watching them all react the same way; it's really unbearable. You should have asked, darling. Now I'm going to have commit some dreadful social solecism and be too busy to meet this woman you've lined up lest I actually perish of tedium in her company."

"No," Hermione shook her head. "I'll her I made a mistake." A quick smile flitted across her face. "I couldn't bear the idea of you wasting away from boredom over tea, not when I like you as I do."

They sat for a while, then, listening to the waves slap against the sand. Theo looked over at Hermione; her eyes were closed and she had her face tipped up to the light. Finally she reached over for his hand. "I am sorry," she said. "I didn't think of anything other than wanting to make you happy. Happier. Of course I should have asked." Theo sighed and slipped his fingers into hers. "Forgive me," she asked, turning to look at him.

"I'd forgive you anything, my sweet. Do I have a choice?"

"Always." Her voice was low, almost lost under the quiet monotony of the waves hitting the sand. "Has it really been that bad?"

He shrugged in the sun, drawing circles in the sand with his free hand, shifting his feet to get more comfortable. She watched him in silence until he said quietly into the space she'd made, "Yes."

"It's not fair," she whispered.

"Life isn't fair."

"What was it like to grow up a Death Eater?" She hesitated. "I mean, with a Death Eater. For you. I've heard some of Draco's stories."

Theo's graceful slouch momentarily stiffened. There's a bird – gull probably - calling out over the water and he waited for the raucous cry to fade before he said, lightly, "I can guarantee you've not heard the worst of it, lovely. And, well, you know what Draco was like as a child: desperate for his father's attention and approval. I learned quickly enough, instead, to avoid attention and keep my head down. Anything, anyone was better than catching my father's eyes, the eyes of his friends. I wouldn't wish that on anyone." He's turned towards her and is looking down into her dark eyes

"It was that bad?" she asked, appalled. He sighed and tugged her over the sand, pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Worse," he whispered into her hair. "Worse than you can imagine. No defense, no escape. All I could do was stay in my room with the door shut and hope people would forget about me. Now," he smiles tightly, "well, now I take a certain pleasure in watching my father squirm, when he's coherent enough to know it's me. I'll take my pleasures where I can."

"I'm so sorry," she buried her head in his chest, wrapped her arms around him.

"Don't pity me. I'd rather like to avoid your pity if I could."

"Friendship?" she asked and he sighed into her hair.

"I'll take anything you'll give me, darling." He released her then, watching over her shoulder where Draco was walking back towards them, carrying the beer.

"I think," she stood up and brushed sand off, "I'm going to go take a stab at your book." She stopped by Draco as she passed and the two shared a kiss, Draco's hands, still gripping bottles, pulling her up against him. The sun through her curls turned her hair into a glowing halo and Theo looked away, turning back only when Draco shoved an open bottle into his hand.

"Why's she fleeing?" he asked, sitting down.

"She asked about my childhood," Theo muttered. Draco tipped his bottle up and raised his eyebrows at his friend in an obvious question. "No," the man snorts. "I didn't tell her any especially grim details, though she apparently gleaned enough to pity me."

"Your favorite thing, pity."

"Could be worse. Did you know about her little matchmaking scheme?"

"Not until we got here. I would've headed her off on that one."

"Thanks." Theo took a large swallow from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"If you plan to keep her in the dark, you know, you're going to have keep your shirt on the whole weekend. One look at your back and she'll put a lot more together."

Theo stared out at the sea. "Why would I be stripping down in front of your girlfriend?"

Draco propped his beer in the sand and lay back on the sand his arm over his eyes. "Because it's you and it's me and it wouldn't exactly be the first time."

. . . . . . . . .

After the sun has set, after dinner and with some of Theo's excellent wine in hand, they settled themselves down across the wide step at the base of the stairs. Draco has braced himself against the broad post railing, his arms wrapped around Hermione, who's leaning on him with her feet stretched out into Theo's lap. He's been rubbing his thumbs in circles on the sole of one foot, listening to her make purring noises like a contented cat.

"I clearly died during the war," she murmured.

"Why is that?" Theo said, watching her lazily.

"Well, I must have died a hero because this is obviously Valhalla."

Theo laughed at that, the sound tricked out of him. "I never thought to hear I was part of someone's idea of paradise."

"Oh, but you are," she sighed, tilting her head even further back against Draco, who's nuzzling her hair. "You can stay forever, Theo. Keep that up and I'll never let you leave."

. . . . . . . . .

_**A/N **__– Can I just say "wow" about how people have actually signed up to follow along this alternate ending. Thank you. I know this chapter's not, perhaps, the sexy-fun-times one wants but it has to get there slowly; the new addition is, after all, just as damaged as the other two._

_I don't usually do a "I wrote this chapter to this song" thing because, well, I don't usually work that way but this one was pretty heavily influenced by "Pity the Child" from the musical Chess by ABBA, which starts with the utterly depressing lines, "When I was nine I learned survival / taught myself not to care."_

_Thank you especially to those people thrillingly kind enough to review what was basically a prologue: Darc-lover, thfourteenth, CGinny, Mistress-Cinder, my name is mommy, MomsEscape, GTH, & JennyFelton. I'd be lying if I didn't admit your words pushed me to work on this chapter rather more quickly than I might have otherwise. I do hope it doesn't disappoint! _


	3. 2 - Covered Now

_A/__N - Trigger warning: references to non-con as well as child abuse. _

. . . . . . . . . .

Theo generally liked mornings if for no other reason than no one else seemed to. Even at 3AM people would be on the streets, going home from late nights, drunk and laughing. By 5, however, the cold and silent world was his to enjoy in solitude. The dark beach at the cottage had turned out to be even better than the London streets and he'd walked down the shore and back, hands pushed into his pockets and shoulders hunched against the wind. This was his time of day, a safe time when you could be sure all the monsters were asleep, a time he'd never shared with anyone.

The cottage lights had been lit by the time he'd turned to walk back and the lone structure gleamed against the slowly bluing world. Trust Draco to have an isolated haven. Trust Hermione to welcome him into it.

When he pushed open the door of the cottage and walked into the small kitchen, searching for coffee, or maybe tea he felt at peace. Or he did until he looked up and saw the pair of them at the far end of the room; he immediately felt his heart start to race, he couldn't get enough air, and he wedged himself back up against the doorframe to keep steady. Draco had Hermione shoved up against the counter, her arms twisted behind her; one of his hands was wrapped tightly in her hair, hauling her head to the side with obvious force. Theo knew – he knew – that the only thing going on here was that he'd stumbled into someone else's sex game, that the appropriate thing to do was to reenter the room, making enough noise beforehand that he'd find them innocuously pouring tea or getting marmalade out of the cupboard but he couldn't. He couldn't focus that much, could barely move because instead of the smirk on Hermione's face, the smirk which was very much there, he saw the women at his manor, his father's 'guests', heard the muffled sobbing, the slaps, the laughter of the attending Death Eaters. He remembered, all too clearly, sitting in his own room upstairs, reading the same line in a book over and over again, waiting for it to be done.

He stood there, eyes closed, trying to make his heart slow down, doing all the breathing exercises he knew when he felt a hand tugging him back to the main room, back to the couch; he was being pushed to sit down and he didn't fight it, just sank, numb, onto the lumpy, cottage sofa.

Hermione nudged him into the corner of the upholstered seat and when he opened his eyes and looked at her she was tucking herself on top of him, kneeling over him, one knee shoved against the back of the couch, the other foot balanced on the floor, steadying herself. She reached out to smooth his hair away from his face and he closed his eyes again, flayed and humiliated and lost. "It's okay, Theo," she murmured. "I'm okay."

He huffed out a half laugh and muttered, "Sorry to be crazy at you, angel. I know you're fine."

Draco stood, awkwardly, behind her and she snapped, without turning, "Get him some tea with a little whiskey tossed in – I think he needs something to take the edge off."

"I'm guessing," she said, hands still stroking his hair, "that triggered something? Something from this unspeakable childhood of yours? Because I have trouble believing you're just clutching at the proverbial pearls at the shocking idea Draco and I aren't celibate."

Theo slouched lower against the arm of the couch. "I admit," he kept his eyes tightly closed, "that while I certainly assumed you two were... it wouldn't have occurred to me that you might like…" he trailed off.

"Ah, well, surprise." Hermione shifted on his lap a little, cupped his cheek with one palm. "I'm right here, Theo. Friends, remember? Talk to me. Let me help."

My father," he whispered at last. "His idea of party entertainment could include… unpleasant situations in which not everyone was… willing. I was generally able to remain out of the way but…I've seen a lot of women in the position you were just in and you're the first one who wasn't… wasn't going to end up covered in her own blood."

He heard her intake of breath, waited for her to recoil from him. Instead, maybe predictably, she's suddenly wrapped her arms around him and he's got a face full of unruly hair and she's saying, over and over again, "I'm so sorry. Oh Theo, I'm so, so sorry. If I'd had even the faintest idea..."

He felt her stiffen against him even as she babbled, felt her fingers slip down under the edge of his loose shirt to pull it away. She's seen, then, at least enough to make her look further. He shuddered and waited as she put her fingers over one of his scars; he even knew which one it was, remembered getting it. He wondered what she was thinking and braced himself against questions, against pity. She didn't say anything though; indeed, she'd fallen totally silent. She just rubbed her fingers back and forth over the small circle on his shoulder. "If I'd had any idea," she finally said again, "I wouldn't have... I should have known; I should have put it together. I'm sorry, Theo. I truly am. I miscalculated and you paid the price. It won't happen again."

"Back off, let the man have a drink." At the dry tone she pulled back and Draco slipped a cup of spiked tea into his hands and Theo gratefully gulped it down.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, looking over her shoulder at Draco. "Awkward to walk in like that, then to have a panic attack, not – "

"Shut up, you prat," Hermione snorted, pulling back from the emotional cliff, letting him come back too. "We're worried about you, I'm worried about you, not about any – "

"It's not, I shouldn't have – "

"Shouldn't have, what? Walked into the kitchen? Don't be ridiculous. If you'd walked in on us in the bedroom I can see you might have a reason to feel apologetic, you idiot, but most people think of the kitchen as public space."

"Do you always call people idiots when you're apologizing to them, dove? That seems not up to your regular standards." he asked, his voice still shaking a bit. "I would expect something like 'lummox' at the very least."

"That's my Theo," she put her hand back on his cheek and he turned his face into it, pressing his lips into her palm. "I'm okay," she whispered again and he hated himself for needing that reassurance, almost hated her for seeing that need so clearly. "It's just a game. No one's getting hurt, no one doesn't want to be there."

"I know," he breathed into her hand. "I know that rationally."

As he calmed down, as the white fog at the edges of his vision cleared away, he realized the absurdity of his position. His only friend was sitting on the table, leaning forward and watching him while that man's girlfriend was straddling his lap, one hand on his face. He had to get her off his lap, and soon, before the panic receded enough for other basic biological responses to come into play. "I'm fine," he muttered. "Not to be thoroughly discourteous, but would you mind getting off of me."

She lifted herself off of him then, and the air felt cold against his skin where she'd been. He realized for the first time she was wearing nothing but a tiny pair of shorts and a shirt that had slipped down her arm enough to mostly expose one breast. As she hitched the strap back up without thought he was suddenly very glad she was no longer pressed into him. The morning had already been quite humiliating enough.

"I think I should go, I've intruded long enough. I'll get myself packed up, out of your hair," he said.

"You really are an idiot," Hermione snorted again nudging him so he turned to the side and she could sit next to him on the couch. She wrapped her hand around his and squeezed his fingers. "You know I'm not letting you leave like this. None of us have any place we have to go, including you. You're staying until you aren't so shaky."

"Welcome," Draco interjected, "to the badly knit hat club."

"Besides, I was going to work on getting another curse off the book you brought me today. You can't possibly be so rude as to leave before I tackle that. What if your book killed me in your absence?"

"Not fair, Hermione," he smiled at her but then flicked a glance at Draco. It's all fun and games, he thought, until your nearly naked girlfriend starts cuddling up with your mate on your couch. That Draco looked more thoughtful than anything else worried him.

"What makes you think I play fair?" Hermione reached her hand out to the blond man, pulled him to join them on the couch. Theo sat, feeling her head resting on his shoulder, her fingers wrapped around his, wretchedly taking comfort that wasn't his to take while his oldest friend, his only friend, played with Hermione's other hand, twining his fingers in and around hers with an inscrutable look on his face.

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione looked at both men and then she and Draco exchanged a glance. "I think," she said, "I'll go for a walk." Warm pants, a jumper and trainers later she was heading down the sand while both men retreated to coffee and kitchen.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco leaned against the counter and looked at Theo, who was drinking his coffee and staring out the window. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing."

"Mmm." Draco took a sip from his cup and started rummaging in the cupboard, pretending to look for something. "I've been thinking of starting up a new Death Eater political party."

Theo turned sharply and looked at him. "What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood the game. I thought we were playing, 'Say utter bullshite'."

"Very funny."

"Yeah? Well, you had a bloody panic attack in the doorway of my kitchen. What's going on?"

Theo snorted and turned back to the window. "I don't want to talk about."

"It's not just nightmares for you, then, I take it?"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it."

"_'Time does not bring relief_,'" Draco pulled a pile of plates down and began sorting out the chipped ones.

"_'You have all lied who told me time would ease me of my pain_.'" Theo replied. "Wanker. Did you think you could stump me by using a Yank?"

"It was worth a shot. It's not getting better?"

"You're bloody relentless, you know that?"

"Do you think I should keep the damaged ones?" Draco frowned at a plate with a dark line running down the center. "Turns out that getting Hermione to throw anything out from this place is an exercise in frustration. She seems to think everything is worth saving."

"Some things are damaged past repair." Theo takes a sip from his coffee and doesn't look at the plate.

"She's never going to believe that." Draco added the plate with the hairline crack to the chipped pile. "You planning on telling me what this morning was about or do I have to set her on you?"

"That's dirty pool."

"And your point is?"

Theo hunched his shoulders forward and leaned over the counter so his hair hung in his eyes. "It just... look, I know you obviously weren't hurting her, and whatever the lines are in your relationship, well, it's none of my business, but in my life the women I've seen pinned up against things with their hair caught in some man's fist have not, as a general rule, been willing. It," he shook his head and sighed. "It took me back, is all."

"It took you back right into a panic attack. That's a bit more than a bad memory."

"Well, the memories are pretty fucking bad, okay? You know, I'd really rather not explore the depths of my feelings about my childhood or my father's idea of excellence in entertaining if you don't mind. Can we stick with how I shouldn't walk in on you two and leave it at that?"

Draco set another plate into the 'keeper' pile. "For now, sure."

"Is this conversation your subtle way of telling me to leave before she comes back?" Theo stared down at the counter, not even sure what he wanted to hear.

Draco huffed out a sharp exhalation, though, and shook his head. "You aren't exactly on your game today, are you?" He wondered, sometimes, just how bad Theo's home had been. The man didn't talk about it in detail, never had. He'd seen the scars, of course. Group showers in boarding school had made them impossible to hide. Adding to his sense Theo's childhood had been very bad indeed, Narcissa had totally forbidden visits to the Nott manor. "Your friend can come here," she'd said. "As often as you'd like and for as long as he'd like to stay." Funny how it was only in retrospect that he'd realized how much Narcissa must have known, how much brutality she'd protected her own son from.

"Then what are you getting at. Humor my lack of insight." Though Theo's tone was light and unconcerned his knuckles were white on his coffee cup.

"It's just…" Draco sighs. "Hermione doesn't have a lot of friends and as a result the ones she does have she – "

"What do you mean, 'doesn't have a lot of friends'? The woman is a beloved public figure!"

"And she was almost an outcast at school, except for Potter and Weasley. Surely you remember her stunning lack of social savvy and that hand shoved in the air to answer every question in class. That's not exactly how you make friends at thirteen. And now she's so scarred by that war she can barely stand to be around groups. Throw in that everyone sees her as a heroine and not as a person and, well… she's lonely and isolated."

"What about Potter and Weasley?" Theo turned to look at the other man in disbelief. He knew, of course, that Draco had spent the bulk of the last seven years alone, as had he. It seemed inconceivable, however, that a woman on the winning side, a woman who was practically the face of the winning side, hadn't spent that time surrounded by people who cared about her.

"They're all battling demons. I mean, they're friends. It's … wait until you see them together. I spent the whole afternoon the first time swallowing how … anyone around them is always going to be an outsider and, let me tell you, that's hard. Their wives sum it up as you get used to it or you leave. That bond is something to see, it's like they're not even complete without each other, but at the same time they all throw each other back into the emotional hell of war. They can't really spend too long together and afterwards it's nightmares."

Theo nodded at that. That made sense but, gods, what a special kind of hell that must be, to have your only friends be the people who set off all your worst memories.

Draco continued on. "You know what it's like to be the smartest one in the room. Most people can't even keep up with her. She finds my mother transparent, for gods' sakes."

"Your mother?" Theo started to laugh. "I'm not sure I've ever met someone less scrutable than Narcissa Malfoy."

"Exactly." Another plate was set back into the "keeper" pile. "She likes you, you don't bore her, you understand her in the way only people plagued with demons can, and, frankly, you don't send her off into screaming, terrified fits at night. Which is to say, you can't just take off."

Another plate was deemed worth keeping and Draco hauled down the next stack to work through before he added, "Probably not ever."

Theo shot him a glance and Draco muttered, "We'll figure it out."

Theo drained his cup and started to rinse it in the sink. After a few minutes standing in silence, helping Draco sort multiple generations worth of old plates, bowls and cups into piles he asked, "Why am I helping you clean out your cabinets?"

"To avoid Hermione, I assume; she's unlikely to just drop it. Hell, she's probably out there right now cooking up some terrifying plan. Also," Draco frowned at the glass in his hand, "because you're smart enough to know she's going to demand your company here regularly and you'd rather not drink out of this." Draco held up the wine glass, which had a nasty chip on the rim.

Theo sighed. "Why not just repair everything?"

Draco opened another cupboard, also tightly packed with dishes. "And there's more in the attic."

"Ah." He ran his thumb around the edge of the next glass and added it to the 'toss' pile when he found a sharp chip in the rim. Then, "Does she really like... that?"

"Mate," Draco started to laugh. "You have no idea."

. . . . . . . . . .

"So, I've been thinking," Hermione began, her eyes glinting, and Draco held back a laugh.

When Theo shot him a look he just gave up and started to snicker openly. "Nothing, and I do mean nothing, good comes from her when she opens with those lines."

She narrowed her eyes at him and he raised a glass to her. "I adore you, my dear, but..."

"I've been thinking," she continued, clearly deciding to ignore him, "that Theo's still too shaky after this morning to be sent off into the world alone. He'll start to ruminate."

"So you plan to bring him home, like a bedraggled kitten you found at the side of the road?"

"Do you object?"

"Of course not," Draco shook his head. "You do know you're a trouble-maker though, right?"

She gave him her best innocent look. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Uh huh."

"Do I even get a say in this?" Theo asked.

"Not really," Hermione smiled at him. "I'll just whip up an extra room and, pas de problem, you live with us."

"Hermione," his voice was low and almost anguished. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"You'll have," she continued on, "to put with my nightmares, of course. And I'm horribly grouchy in the morning. Plus, I get very irritated if people, meaning you two, lose my place in my book."

"Books," Draco snorted. "You've generally got three of four going at once."

"It's really best not to touch the books," she agreed.

"Which is hard, as she leaves them on every flat surface."

"Oh, and we eat take away almost every meal because I'm essentially the anti-cook and Draco might actually be worse, which I didn't even know was possible until I tried the chicken thing he mangled."

"Chicken is very hard," he interjected.

"It's not," Theo looked at him. "Chicken is almost idiot proof."

"You can cook?" Hermione turned to him with a terrifying enthusiasm in her eyes.

"Everyone can cook," he rolled his own eyes and Draco shook his head again.

"That is absolutely not true."

"Draco," she breathed, "he's the answer to our prayers - "

"Your what?"

"Muggle thing. He can cook. No more having to stop what we're doing to trek out into the damp. No more eating curry every other night." She grabbed Theo's hand. "You have to promise to move in. We need you, Theo. I risk actual starvation, or at the very least food poisoning, without you."

"Hermione," he looked at her and, under that cheerful insanity about the cooking, she's searching his expression, waiting for him.

"Don't reject me," she said it lightly enough but Theo's seen enough masks in his life, in his own mirror, to see through hers. "Be my friend."

"I couldn't, princess," he murmured, taking her hand. "Not ever, and I am, always, but..."

"One step at a time," she held his fingers in her own. "Can you handle company every hour of every day. Our company?"

"It...yes." He had to drag the whispered reply up from the depths of his soul.

"Then say you'll come."

"_'Eros harrows my heart_'," he closed his eyes. "This may not be a good idea, Hermione."

"_'wild gales'_," she responded, "_'sweeping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks_.' Don't tell me what's a bad idea. This, sweet sweet Theo, might be a very good idea indeed."

"You are as hard to trip up as Draco."

"Probably harder," she replied smugly.

. . . . . . . . . .

_A/N – As I mentioned before, this one will probably be slow on the updates. In The Die I could kind of brush off that Theo had an abusive childhood but in order to pull him into this odd, makeshift family I have to get into that head space and that's not a nice place to go. _

_First, the citations:_

"_Time does not bring relief," from sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay, who I love madly._

_Eros harrows my heart: / wild gales sweeping desolate mountains, / uprooting oaks. - Sappho, fragment 42, translated by Michael Burch. Sappho is also for loving; I have no opinion on Michael Burch, however._

_Then the thanks:_

_Thank you to everyone who has followed the story, favorited it, reviewed it. Much love, especially, to the reviewers: Darc-lover, my name is mommy, MCannon5887, Mistress Cinder, Meuba, LB123, Grovek26, LadiePhoenix007, ecm20, dulce du leche go, GTH, Elle Leigh, stardust923. Your reviews are sparkles of light in my day._


	4. 3 - Bits of A Puzzle

In retrospect he's amazed at how quickly he started to feel at home in her flat – in their flat. He's charmed by her shameless magical addition, by the way she sends an owl off to the Ministry letting them know she's made changes and would they like to come inspect. He's as irritated as she is by the quick, "we're sure anything you do is fine" response.

"Wankers," is all she had said when she'd read the response. He'd looked at her as she'd ripped their letter into tiny shreds. "They think," she'd snapped, "that they can buy me with overlooked code violations, that if they ever want to haul me out to act as a war icon I'll do it with a smile on my face."

"Have they ever asked?" He couldn't help but inquire.

"Once. She sent them a memory of herself screaming at night and told them that as soon as her war fears had resolved themselves she'd be happy to talk to them. They haven't asked since." Draco had drawled from the couch. "They're still smart enough to overlook things like the extra wizard space and the dark books she's got lurking in corners. No one wants a pissed off, beloved war heroine whinging to the papers about them."

Theo had laughed at that. The more he'd learned about how carefully she'd protected herself from government meddling the more impressed he had been; she wanted to be left alone and she'd taken steps to ensure that was exactly what she was.

He'd unpacked his things – mainly books – and closed himself into his illegally added room that first day and sat on the floor leaning up against the bed, his head in his hands. He still wasn't sure why he was doing this to himself, how he'd somehow ended up herded into living here with Draco's dark silences and Hermione's nighttime terrors. He wasn't sure how he'd survive this, how he'd survive the inevitable end of this. She's not yours, he reminded himself. She's a friend, just a friend. When he'd opened the door to lean, tense and falsely nonchalant, on the frame they'd both been on the couch, Hermione's head in Draco's lap, a book propped open in front of her. She'd looked at him, then, and smiled. "Do you know Billy Collins?"

"American poet?" He had raised his eyebrows. "_The dead are always looking down on us_?"

"That's the one," she'd stretched her arm out to him, the book teetering at the edges of her fingertips, and he'd snatched it before it could topple down. "Come read to me."

He'd sat down against the couch, then, just as he had the first night he had come over, and he felt her fingers settle against his neck, move lightly back and forth on his skin. The book open, he had begun to slowly read aloud, words like balm, easing him into this place.

. . . . . . . . . .

He learned quickly enough that Hermione wasn't kidding about not liking mornings. For a man up before dawn every day that was more amusing than anything else. He grew to look forward to her sullen march into the kitchen, hair tousled and eyes still heavy with sleep, to take pleasure in handing her a cup of tea. By then he'd have already been out, walking, bent down into the dark solitude of the last remnants of night, and come back, paper in hand.

He learned that it was pointless to try to fetch anything from the local pastry shop as the woman, no matter how early he was there, would hold her hands out in feigned resignation. Nothing left, sir. For Draco, the actual former Death Eater, she'd pull saved treats out from under the counter. For him, however, she had nothing. He was too used to this to even get upset and too wise to tell Hermione, who would surely march in there, feathers ruffled, splendid in her outrage but unable to make the woman like him enough to sell him anything.

He learned that Draco hid away, working on conquering the world with commerce. Owls came and went all day and when the man emerged from his office he looked tired but usually also smugly pleased; dominating whatever he touched appeared to agree with him. Theo had never cared for his own father's business interests, and found himself grateful his own finances were simple and required little to no attention.

How comfortable the routine became scared him. It was too easy to slip into this life, as if he were a quiet piece that had been missing, as if there had been an opening just his size waiting for him to settle into it. He fenced verbally with Draco, the two of them endlessly trying to trip one another, and Hermione would watch them, her eyes, and sometimes even her mouth, laughing. He flirted with Hermione, kissing her fingertips, reading her poetry, and trying so very hard to maintain his distance. Still, he slowly grew more and more at ease; he had worried he wouldn't be able to endure contact with others all day, every day, after so much solitude, had worried his own periods of long, bleak silence would be unendurable to them but instead he'd found that both drifted around his moods with no apparent effort. He said something, once, in gratitude, to Hermione and she'd looked at him, her dark gaze unwavering and he'd thought about the demons she battled, that they all battled, and realized she understood all too well. He learned to make noise before coming up behind her, learned how she was afraid of the dark, afraid of the shadows, believed her when she said it was better, now. Better than it had been.

Wasn't sure he believed her when she put her hand on his arm and told him having him there made it better.

Wept that night when he heard her nightmare and knew he couldn't go to her, couldn't help her, that that was Draco's place.

That next morning he didn't go out to walk in the cold; he'd finally fallen asleep shortly before dawn and didn't stumble from bed into the kitchen until much later, not thinking, too worn to remember to be cautious. He only remembered he wasn't wearing a shirt when he heard the fall of Hermione's feet entering the kitchen behind him briefly falter. He cringed, braced himself for what was coming but all she did was walk past him. "Do we have any milk left?" she asked.

Theo stared at the woman, bent over, rummaging about, pulling out the teapot. She didn't turn to him, just stood up and started spooning leaves into the tea ball. "You both tend to use it all and forget to get more." She leaned across to put the water on. "There are things about living with two men it didn't occur to me to prepare for. I mean, I knew men were gross; you can't be friends with Harry and Ron for years and not figure that out. But the way you don't think to replace common items when they run out, I wasn't expecting that."

"You're not going to say anything?" he finally asked.

She shrugged and opened up a cabinet, pulling down a can. "I guess I'll have to use coconut milk this morning."

"What?"

"You used all the milk," she spoke with exaggerated patience. "And I want milk in my tea this morning so I'm going to try to make do."

"I…" he paused and looked at her. "This is not the reaction I expected."

"About using up all the milk? It's not that big of a problem; I'll just go get more today, or you can. Or are we talking about your scars?" With that she viciously pulled an opener from a drawer and started to pull the top off the tin.

"Well, yes. Scars."

There was a long stretch of silence. It reached out from her, settled into the room, wrapped itself about his feet as he waited. "I am," she spoke, at last, very quietly, "so incredibly angry about that I am barely able to control myself and I am trying very hard to avoid thinking of how much I'd like to commit murder right now. I believe the technical term for what I am doing is sublimation. Do you want any tea?" She bites out the last sentence and for the first time he sees the fury roiling beneath her calm surface.

"Yes," he stood, still almost frozen, at the counter. "Tea would be nice." He found he was shocked by her rage, by how furiously, instantly protective she'd gotten, by how hard she was working not to let him see it. It's easy to forget, on ordinary days, that his haunted, bookish flatmate had helped destroy a monster because, mostly, of her unshakable, unwavering loyalty to a friend.

He's struck, for the first time, with the realization she's pulled him into her circle, that she's gifted that kind of loyalty – that ridiculous, brave, courageous loyalty – to him. He has no idea why she'd do that.

"I knew, of course," she pulled down two cups and set them out. Her voice is brisk, the kind of crisp unemotional tone people get when they're trying too hard. "Though not, I admit, the extent of it. I saw a bit at the cottage. Saw the one on your shoulder. Cigarette, I assume?"

He nodded.

She swallowed hard, closed her eyes. Then, "Turn around. Let me see." He looked at her, then did what she asked, flinching as she reached her hand out, traced the marks across his back and shoulders. Finally, both hands splayed across him she leaned in, rested her forehead against his skin. He stood there without moving, not knowing what to do, feeling her breath against his skin. Slowly she wrapped her arms around him and waited there, pressed into him without saying anything, until the tea-kettle began to whistle. Then she let him go and padded back across the kitchen. As she poured water into the teapot she said, "You know you didn't do anything to deserve any of that."

He turned back, looked at the steeping tea rather than at her and said, "Intellectually, yes, of course I know that."

"No one did anything?"

"How many children have you known who tell?"

"None."

"Well," he shrugged. "There you go."

She spooned some of the coconut milk into her cup and looked at him, raised her eyebrows. He made a face. "No, thank you. The very idea is repulsive."

"Wimp."

"What?"

"You heard me." She pulled the tea ball out of the pot and looked at the tea. "You are an alternative milk wimp." She started to pour the tea into her cup, frowned, then lowered the tea ball back into the pot to let it steep a little longer.

"I hardly think..."

But she dipped the spoon back into the tin and flicked a bit of the coconut at him. He looked at her, outraged, and then scooped up two fingers worth of almost wholly solid coconut cream from the tin and lobbed it at her. She used her spoon to launch another dab at him and then he just took the whole can and dumped it on her head.

"I win," he announced, laughing as coconut watery whatever – really, how could she even think of putting that in tea – ran down the side of her cheek. She took a towel and wiped her face, making a mock frown as she poured the tea, finally ready, into their cups.

She handed him his cup, sipped from hers, and touched her hair, where a wad of coconut goo clung. She made a face and scraped the stuff out of her hair, flicked it into the sink. "Remind me never to start something like that with you again; you don't fight fair."

"I fight to win, dove. Fair has nothing to do with winning; you know that." He grinned at her, feeling lighter than he had in so long, and sipped his tea as her movements freed another wad of congealed coconut to plop to the floor. She's holding back a smile, trying to look annoyed, but failing and finally she just leaned against the counter and laughed.

"This, this is disgusting." She set her tea down.

"Why am I not surprised? Coconut milk? In tea?"

"I'm taking another shower and either you fetch milk while I'm getting this… stuff out of my hair or get ready to take me out for a decent cup of tea and a scone or something."

"Will do, lovely."

She stopped as she passed him, put her hand on his arm. "You're worth loving, Theo," was all she said, then she was gone and he closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing.

As Theo stood, gathering himself, Draco walked in and poured himself his own cup of tea, sans milk, and looked around at the mess. "Do I even want to know what happened?"

"We had a food fight." He opened his eyes and looked with careful amusement at the slime on the floor. "I have been informed that once she is clean again I am taking her out for tea, presumably as some kind of penance for not getting more milk, which resulted in the whole coconut milk incident."

Draco eyed him. "So, she comes in, sees your back, and proceeds to throw food at you?"

"It," Theo paused and shook his hair away from his eyes. "It made sense while it was happening."

Draco snorted and cleaned up the mess. The two men looked at each other and then Draco asked, "Do I get to come along on this tea outing?"

"I hope so. I don't know if I can fend off another food assault on my own."

Draco eased slightly and Theo muttered, "She's your girlfriend, mate" to which the other man snorted. They stood, awkwardly, each drinking tea and studying the floor, the walls, the window. Anything but looking at each other.

At last Theo asked, "Does she know about - ".

Draco shook his head. "It's never quite come up."

"Even with her inviting – dragging – me to live here you never mentioned it? Never thought it might - "

"I did turn out to prefer girls," the blond muttered, "so it didn't seem quite relevant." He paused a bit and added in an undertone, "though it, our history I mean, would make things possible with you I'd never be able to consider with anyone else."

Theo still didn't look at him, opted not to address that. "I rather prefer girls too."

"Was it…"

"My father still calls me a faggot." Theo frowned down at his nearly empty cup. "Though I've never been quite sure whether that was because of you or because I opted out of his little party games."

"How in hell did he find out?"

"You don't rise in Death Eater ranks by not getting good at finding things out." Theo shrugged. "I don't know, he had sources. Pansy maybe? I can see her dropping a casual word to her own dear father, who would have promptly passed the information on. I wasn't really in a position to ask. She never liked me and she really didn't like the idea of you and me."

"Fuck. I'm sorry," Draco turned to look out the window into the alley behind the building.

"Don't be." Theo set his cup down with a loud clatter on the counter. "Don't pile more guilt on yourself. It was fun enough at the time, for all that you're too pale for my personal aesthetic tastes."

"We should probably tell her," Draco said with almost no expression.

"That I don't care for blonds?"

"You don't?" Hermione has come back into the room, damp and smelling of vanilla.

"No," Theo smiled at her. "The man practically glows in the sunlight, look at him," he waved a hand towards Draco, backlit in the kitchen window.

"I know," Hermione leaned up against Theo, wrapping an arm around his waist. "He looks a bit like an angel."

"And what, dear one, do I look like?"

"Like a man who has yet to get ready to take me out for tea." She pouted dramatically and stomped her foot. "Stop flaunting your deliciousness and get dressed already or I'll become irritated with you."

"You think I'm delicious, love?"

She stepped away, towards Draco, and made an elaborate show of running her eyes over him, up, down, up again. "Yes, I'd say you qualify."

"Also," Draco drawled, reaching out to snag Hermione and pull her to him, "half-dressed, which is going to be awkward just about anywhere we go, so go put a shirt on already."

As Theo left he heard Hermione ask, "What, exactly, are you two not telling me?"

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N - **__The citation…_

"_The dead are always looking down on us, they say. / while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich, / they are looking down through the glass bottom boats of heaven / as they row themselves slowly through eternity." From The Dead by Billy Collins_

_Thank you to my lovely reviewers; I admit, without shame, that your words push me to work on this faster. I hadn't meant to update so soon but it came out, I wrote it down, and here it is. CGinny, Elle Leigh, LadiePhoenix007, Honoria Granger, Grovek26, Guest, my name is mommy, GTH, Meuba, Mistress Cinder, dulce de leche go, Darc-lover, Analena._


	5. 4 - Adopted Strangers

"You," Hermione said, "need something to do. Come help me sort."

"Get Draco," he looked at her over the edge of the paper.

"Draco set a book on fire once by accident. I'd prefer you. And, anyway, he's still doing that Malfoy Industries thing." She pushed the paper down and looked at him. "Plus, you're ruminating again."

He glared at her. "I'm fine."

"Good, then you won't have trouble helping me sort these books out. I got a big shipment in last week and I haven't even opened the boxes." She's still holding the paper down and he sighs.

"You are a pain in the arse." He put down his paper, though, and obediently followed he downstairs to the book shop where they began pulling books from each of the large boxes she'd left sitting piled right in front of her counter and sorting them into 'high risk', 'shelve now', and 'put on free table'. She'd taken to leaving a table outside with books she wanted to get rid of on the weekends and this batch had an unfortunately large number of books that it would be hard to even give away. They worked in companionable silence for quite a bit as they both evaluated books. If there were some he had to set aside for her to look at, well, most of them he was well able to recognize on his own and he was gratified that she almost always confirmed what had been his own hunch about the trickier books. Growing up with books – mostly dark books no sane person would want, but books nonetheless – turned out to have been good preparation for at least one practical job.

Well, being a rare bookseller might not actually be a practical job, but he supposed it was better than scooping ice cream.

"You should go to Malfoy Manor some day," he said as he cut open the next box in the pile, thinking only about how much that room with its floor to ceiling books and huge windows would thrill her. "Draco's library would – "

"I can't go to the Manor," she cut him off.

He looked at her, wondering why, and she silently shoved up her sleeve and held her arm out, the scarred slur still easily visible. 'Mudblood.'

Of course. He felt like an utter ass. "Maybe Nott Manor then," he said, staring down, forcing himself to go on, to keep his voice light. He hated pity, assumed she did too. "It's not nearly as impressive but at least you weren't tortured there."

"I thought you hardly ever went back." She, too, kept her tone idle and unconcerned.

"No, I do. I hate the place, of course. Dark, gloomy, filled with relics even a museum wouldn't put out, but I go back to fetch things all the time. It's where I got you that book, the cursed one." He put three books in a row on the 'free' pile, keeping all of his attention focused on the task at hand, keeping himself thinking about things other than his childhood home.

Several minutes passed before she said, "That would be nice, if you think you - "

"I can."

She nodded and he pretended not to see her worried look. It was fine, it was. He did go back, briefly, to fetch things, and all the time. If the place still made his shoulders hunch up about his ears, well, he'd just plan on drinking afterwards. A book to the free pile, a book to the good pile. Good, free, free, free, good. He stopped and looked at one of them. It was small, bound in leather, with faded lettering reading 'Spes Pereatur'.

"This one's a fake," he handed her one from his box.

"What do you mean," she turned the book over in her hands. "This was the reason I bought the whole lot. There are only five known original copies, it's…"

"A fake. I have one at the manor; we can get it so you can compare. Hell, you can have it, though I'd recommend keeping it warded because it's really nasty. The original copies were written in blood."

She looks at the faded red writing and sighs. "And this isn't brown enough to be old blood. Damn it."

"It might be a fair copy," he said, rubbing his hand up and down her arm to console her though, honestly, she should be happy to avoid the rotten thing.

"Even if it is, it's not worth what one of the original five are." She put the book down and made an irritated sound. "I wonder if the person who sold me the set knew."

The bell on the door rang and they both looked up. Theo had yet to see someone come in without an appointment; it just wasn't that kind of shop. The woman, middle-aged and frumpy with a hat set badly on a stiffly set hairdo, looked back at both them. "I understand," she said with an affected sneer, "that you have some unusual books."

Hermione smiled and crossed over to the woman. "I do. Was there something particular that you were looking for?"

"I collect 14th century herbals," the woman sniffed. "I thought it might be worth checking to see if you have any I don't already own."

As Hermione was leading her to the shelf with the herbalist guides the woman looked, really looked, at Theo. "Why," she asked, "is _he_ here?"

Theo began to withdraw back into himself, to head for the stairs leading up to the apartment, when Hermione stopped him with her hand on his arm. "Theodore Nott is my new assistant," she said with a toothy smile. "He's quite the expert on rare books, just identified a poorly vetted volume this morning."

"He's a Death Eater," the woman snapped.

"Technically, his father is a Death Eater," Hermione tilted her head to the side as though she were considering the matter. "Theo never took the Mark. However, my boyfriend, our other roommate, did."

"I don't think I want to shop here," the woman pulled herself up to her full height. "Not if you…"

"Just as well," Hermione plucked a book off the shelf. "Your money's no good here." She turned to Theo, handed him the book. He looked at it and suppressed his laughter. It was, of course, a rare 14th century guide to herbs. "Would you be so kind as to let…"

The woman had spotted the book at that point and almost tried to snatch it from Theo's hands. "I've searched for that for years."

"Yes, well, it's not for sale." Hermione smiled at her. "Not to you."

"How dare you – " the woman begins.

Theo often forgot that Hermione was prone to rash, impulsive acts. On a day-to-day basis her penchant for championing the underdogs never really came up. She was his flatmate, the woman who glared at everyone before she had coffee or tea, who knew without asking when he needed space and when her company would be welcome, who refused to listen when he and Draco talked about sports. She was just Hermione, increasingly comfortable, increasingly necessary, even if he sometimes caught her giving him considering looks when she thought he was absorbed in a book.

"I would," she said now, not raising her voice, "rip this books to shreds in front of you and then set it on fire before I would sell it to a woman who judges people based on what they were forced to do as children."

"Like father," the woman snaps, looking angry and horrified and like she was physically restraining herself from grabbing the book and running, "like son. You should get rid of him before…"

"Some things – some people - are too precious to ever get rid of," Hermione's voice remained serene though Theo saw by the set of her shoulders that that calm was taking a bit of an act of will. She gave the woman a level look and added, "Not, of course, everything. Or everyone."

"You're a fool, war heroine or no, and if you think I care what a two-bit, washed up bookseller thinks of me you're very much mistaken."

"Maybe," Hermione shrugged, crossing the room to the door of the shop. "But I'm the fool with the book you want, and I'm the fool who is going to show you to the door and back into the street, and then I'm the fool who's going to go upstairs to my flat and have dinner with two men I happen to adore. There are worse things in life than to be the foolish, two-bit bookseller that I am." With that she held the door open and waited for the woman to leave. The woman glared at her, glared at the book Theo still held in his hand, and then swirled out the door in a huff.

"Would you really have destroyed the book just to make a point," Theo asked, staring at her.

"Well, I didn't think it would come to that but of course I would have," Hermione flicked a glance at him. "It's just a book."

"You love books."

"Well, that one bit me once so I'm actually not especially fond of it."

"Still."

She plucked the book out of his hand and left it on the counter, slipped her hand into his and leaned against his side, suddenly tired. "Come on, love, let's go pull Draco away from his paperwork and endless plans for world domination and go out. You can spoon chocolate mousse into my mouth over candlelight."

"Wouldn't that be Draco's job?"

"He can share."

"Not his strongest skill."

"I think he'll make an exception for you."

. . . . . . . . . .

The dinner was excellent. The chocolate was excellent. Draco not only didn't object to watching him spoon feed Hermione, he bloody well handed the spoon over and watched the whole transaction through heavy-lidded eyes, his arms wrapped around the woman in their shadowed corner booth.

Am I supposed, Theo wondered, to make them spell out whatever it is they're doing or would that break this spell?

Can I feed your girlfriend?

Can I kiss your girlfriend?

Can I fuck your girlfriend?

Can I love your girlfriend? Because, he admitted to himself, watching her lick the spoon, if I can't have that, I don't think I can bear any of the others.

. . . . . . . . . .

When he woke up Hermione was sleeping next to him, curled into his side. He replayed going to bed and, no, she hadn't been there then.

"You're conscious and aware?"

Theo turned sharply to see Draco in a chair, legs stretched out.

"What…?" he asked the other man.

"Night terror, or at least that's my best guess. You were trapped in some world in your head and it didn't look pretty; it was… we couldn't wake you up, couldn't shake you out of it." The blond ran his hand through his hair and Theo stared at him. Bags shadowed his eyes and if he'd slept at all it had clearly been fitful, miserable sleep propped in that chair. "I was afraid you'd hurt yourself. You were – you were pretty upset."

Theo looked back at Hermione, still asleep, and then at Draco again. "I don't remember anything," he whispered.

"Well, trust me," the other man muttered, "I didn't spend all night in your chair for the joy of it." He stood up, wincing when he put weight on a foot that had apparently fallen asleep. "I'm going to bed. When she wakes up, please try to explain to her that next time this happens we can move you and it will be fine; you won't freak out to wake up in another room."

Theo rubbed his face with both hands and tried to get an answer to what seemed like the most pressing question. "Why is your girlfriend in my bed?"

"Because the only thing – and I do mean the _only_ thing – that calmed you down was her and she wouldn't let me move you to our bed." Draco stopped at the door, still shaking his foot and favoring it a little. "I mean it. Our bed is larger, we can all fit, and you can just cope with being hauled to the other room. If she's the magic fairy that keeps you from bloody well ramming your head through the wall, fine, but I don't care to spend another night in that chair."

"Why did you?" Theo looked helplessly at his friend and the man snorted.

"Did you miss the part about how you were trying to ram your head through the wall?" Draco rolled his eyes and then, before he shut the door, added. "I'll see you both sometime later this afternoon. Don't fucking wake me up; don't let _her _wake me up."

Theo pulled himself fully upright, leaned against the headboard and stared at the woman next to him. She stirred a bit, turned over and buried her face into his thigh. He rubbed his face again, feeling the stubble drag against his hands, and wondered what he was supposed to do, wondered what exactly was the etiquette for waking up this way, especially when the man who should be most outraged seemed only exhausted and worried. "Hermione," he sighed, "are you trying to kill me, love? What am I supposed to do?" He ran his hand over her hair, pulled his fingers along a thick, unraveling braid she'd shoved her hair into and then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The air of the room was cold on his exposed torso, especially when compared to the warmth of the body pressed up to him "To Carthage then I came," he whispered, holding that braid in his hand. "Burning, burning, burning," his voice choked and caught, "burning."

"Carthago delenda est," came a sleepy response and he laughed hoarsely.

"Am I ever going to befuddle you with the references?"

"Probably not." She still hasn't moved other than to burrow more tightly against him and her words are muffled. "I like it when you try, though."

He huffed out a laugh. "Then I won't stop." He ran his fingers up and down the edge of her plaited hair again, let himself trail his fingers gently along her neck telling himself she did it to him _all the time_ when Draco was right there so it was clearly within the boundaries of whatever was acceptable in this strange little triad. "I won't ever stop, sweet one."

"I was so worried about you," she rolled away a little bit, just enough so she could tip her head up and look at him. "It didn't seem like anything helped. I," she hesitated, "I didn't know what to do."

"How?" he gestured at her, and the bed, and she shrugged.

"You only stopped flinging yourself at the wall when I was holding on to you. It… we tried a lot of stuff. " She gave him a sad, curious look. "Does this happen a lot?"

Theo shook his head, then sighed. "I don't know, I guess. I would have said not but…"

"How… you don't remember, do you?"

"From my perspective, lovely, I went to bed alone and woke up next to beauty." He tugged on her braid and she didn't smile, as he'd hoped, but rather looked worried and sat up, brushing loose, frizzy bits of hair that had escaped her plait out of her eyes. He reached out and tucked some of them behind her ear, let himself trace the line of her jaw with his thumb before he pulled his hand back, leaned back away from her, supporting himself on both arms. This conversation needed to be less fraught, and now. "You're awake early. For you."

"And you're up late," she retorted, rolling her eyes. "The sun's already up."

"Probably for a while," he agreed. "I'm clearly a lazy sot." He found himself amused, now that the shock of her presence was wearing off, that she was such a mess in the morning. Her hair tied up in a rapidly unraveling braid, wearing an old t-shirt of Draco's, she was an unkempt disaster. She was enchanting.

Gods, he hoped she was wearing some kind of shorts with that shirt. He forced himself to keep his eyes above her waist; self-control only went so far and, whatever Draco was playing at, Theo doubted the man waking up from a much needed rest to discover his girlfriend had been ravished would make for a pleasant afternoon.

Draco's messy, enchanting, unutterably ravishable and obviously willing girlfriend who was _in his bed._

Theo closed his eyes and recited quiddich statistics to himself. At length.

When he opened them, her smile had turned from worried to maybe a little hopeful, and she reached out towards him, drew her fingers through the hair falling into his eyes. "Theo," she whispered. "My sweet, sweet Theo." She leaned in towards him, her fingers moving from his hair to his mouth, and then she was right in front of him and all he had to do was angle himself towards her just the smallest bit, just a few inches, and it would be her mouth on his, not her fingers.

"No," he whispered.

She stilled, and pulled back, just the tiniest bit, leaving her fingers brushing lightly against his face. "'And indeed,'" she murmured, "'there will be time, time for you and time for me.'"

"'Time," he muttered, "'To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"'"

"C'mon," she eased herself off the bed, watching him the whole time. "Now that you're up and okay, let's go see if we can bully that patisserie shop dragon to sell us croissants. We'll shameless name drop and see if the idea that they're really for Draco will induce her to part with them."

"I've never seen a woman so loathe to sell her own baked goods." He kept his voice from shaking, kept himself from reaching out to grab her wrist to drag her back into the bed, cursed her, cursed himself, cursed the whole bloody world.

"It is peculiar, I admit," Hermione agreed and she left him, then, alone in his bright, sunny room with an echo of the not quite kiss, an echo of the aching, burning carnality that hadn't happened, sounding behind her.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N - **__My Latin composition skills have always been piss poor. I was trying to make the book title read "Let Hope Be Lost". If I've mangled it, please correct me and I'll fix it._

"_To Carthage then I came / Burning burning burning burning" from The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot._

"_Carthago delenda est": Carthage must be destroyed, how Cato the Elder famously ended every, or maybe only almost every, speech he gave to the Roman senate. Eliot is probably not actually referring to aggressive Roman foreign policy is his poem but rather to Christian and Buddhist texts exhorting people to avoid purely physical urges._

"_And indeed there will be time" and the rest of the quotes about time are from lines 23, 31, and 37/38 of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, also by T.S. Eliot. A boy once tried to seduce me using that poem, which would have been considerably more likely to succeed if he didn't also fess up he actually preferred a friend of mine but figured since I was a flirt I would be easier. _

_Thank you to all the wonderful people who took the time to read and follow and review. Especially LB123, Darc-lover, love-them-all10, SusanMarieS, GTH, thfourteenth, Analena, Grovek26, CatLionsfire, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, Gunhildde, Elle Leigh, cpetrienm, Mistress-Cinder, my name is mommy, dulce de leche go, Ev'rdeen, CGinny, Honoria Granger, LadiePhoenix007, Meuba._

_The extremely dark story of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things in a post-war AU that I'm wring with the inimitable dulce de leche go, A Bodyguard of Lies, is chugging along. Theo in that fic isn't so much a tortured soul as a torturing one… _

_So, read that one and also tell me what you think of this one pretty please…_


	6. 5 - Never Wonder

How often Theo catches Draco and Hermione pressed up against walls and counters rapidly became one of the most irritating things about living with them. They always flush when Draco releases her and then Hermione looks at him as if he might break and both of these things increasingly grate on his nerves until, one day, walking in on them _again_ in the kitchen – he's begun to wonder if Draco finds something about cupboards inherently erotic – he's had enough.

Again, as usual, Draco releases the woman and, again, like always, she doesn't seem to know what to do with her suddenly freed hands. This time she held them out in front of her, awkwardly, before she tucked some hair behind her ear and smiled at him as if she'd just been hanging out against the counter, and nothing untoward at all had been happening. Theo walked across the room, glared at her, then grabbed her and shoved her fragile wrists back into Draco's hands. "Gods. Would you two both stop acting like I'm going to self-immolate if I catch you playing your kinky little sex games?"

"Well," Draco drawled, pushing Hermione's hands back against the counter on each side of her body but also watching him with narrowed, considering eyes, "Last time you did have a panic attack."

"No," Theo corrected, "the _first_ time I had a panic attack. _Last_ time I rolled my eyes and went back to reading the paper. The time before _that_ I pretended not to see you. The time before _that - _"

"Ah. I guess I see your point."

"Yes," Theo tried not to stomp his foot like a child but, damn, did they really have no idea how _often_ he found them doing this? "The first time was a bit of a shock but, gods, I get it, you're not abusing her, you aren't my father, she's not some broken victim. She's fine. I'm fine. I'm not going to bloody well shatter at the idea you two like it a little rough."

Theo watched Draco lean forward and whisper something into Hermione's ear. She glared at him but almost unconsciously pushed herself towards him as well, straining against his restraints. Draco gave her one of his cockiest looks and let her go, stepped back. "Of course," the man said, "I could just go back to work if you'd rather not…" he trailed off and she swallowed hard, tossed her head and stomped off towards their room. "Attitude…" he called after her and she slammed the door.

Draco eyed Theo. "Are you really okay?"

"If I hadn't developed an immunity to the two of you by now I'd be cowering in the corner, and almost on an hourly basis." He paused and considered the little scene that had just played out in front of him. "Do I want to know what you're about to do to her?"

"I don't know." Draco started to cross the flat. "Do you?"

Theo stared at him and Draco relented. "I'm just going to tease the hell out of her before shagging her senseless. Now that we all know you're not going to melt, I probably won't bother to heal any marks I leave after we're done but..."

"Just – fuck," Theo muttered. "Have you really been trying to protect my delicate sensibilities thatmuch?"

"Pretty much," Draco shrugged. "It wasn't a big deal but I'll like seeing her wandering around roughed up again." His hand on the doorknob he stopped and looked back at Theo. "Best mates?"

Theo sighed, then said, "Obviously."

"You're the only person I've shared plenty of things with. Try to stop assuming this would be any different." And, with that, Draco slipped inside his door and, mercifully, he silenced the room. He didn't always, which might be the _second_ most irritating thing about living with the two of them.

. . . . . . . . . .

Later, after Draco had come out of their room looking languid and smug, only to disappear back into his office, after Hermione'd slipped into the bathroom and taken a long shower, Theo looked up and around from his book at sudden 'ouch' to see her dressed with wet hair spilling down around her shoulders, a towel still around her neck to absorb the water.

He watched her run a comb through her wet, wet hair and flinch when she caught another snarl and then he waved her over. "Come," he pointed to the floor in front of where he sat on the couch and set his book down. "Sit. Give me that." He held his hand out towards her and, though he had to jerk it up and down several times before she put the comb in it, she finally settled in front of him.

"Why are you combing it wet?" he asked, starting to work though her hair, one lock at a time.

He could almost feel the exasperation rising off of her. "If I brush it dry I look like a giant puffball when I'm done."

"So… what you looked like in school then?" He was working at a tough snarl and didn't realize until she stiffened how insulting that sounded. "Sorry." He reached down with his free hand and tugged her arm up, prepared to kiss her fingers with his usual elaborate flirtation but was stopped by the red mark on her wrist that hadn't faded. He brushed his thumb over it.

"Is this what I have to look forward to now that you two aren't hiding your little kinks anymore?"

She pulled her arm back down and he didn't speak for a bit, just combed out her hair. Finally she said, "Does it bother you?"

He wanted to brush her off with a shallow 'of course not' but instead he sighed and rested his hand for a moment on her neck, toying with one of her damp curls. "It's still a bit hard to wrap my mind around, to be completely honest. I don't… I don't think it would work for me."

She snorted at that. "Given how obsessed you are with control, I'd think it'd be exactly what would work for you."

"I'm not obsessed with control," he muttered, going back to picking out her hair. She turned quickly, her hair yanking the comb away from his fingers as she stared at him.

"Really?" She reached up and wriggled the comb out of her hair, dropped it to the floor. "I have seen you not in total control of yourself exactly twice, once in a panic attack and once caught in a nightmare. Theo, I love you, but you are so locked down it's amazing you can even breathe."

He froze.

"She does, you know." Draco's voice came from somewhere behind the couch. "She's a bit all or nothing that way. I did tell her not to spring it on you but you might have noticed she has this impulsive streak."

"I'd noticed that, yes," Theo didn't turn towards his friend, just stared at the woman in front of him. "I wasn't done with your hair," he finally said, reaching down to pick up the comb. "Turn back around."

That she did so without saying anything else was a relief, and he silently began again, one slow, careful slide of the comb though her hair after another. Draco had leaned over the edge of the couch and tipped his head to look at his friend; Theo looked over and the blond was smirking, damn him. "We really aren't going to allow you to leave, you know. You might as well get used to it. Being loved, I mean."

"Most men," Theo kept his voice cool and uninflected, "might find this situation a trifle unusual. Awkward, even."

Draco shrugged. "We aren't most men. Neither of us. Raised by monsters, thrown into a war as children, and on the losing side no less. Reviled as adults for things that were beyond our control. I trust exactly three people in this world, one of them is my mother, and I would do anything to ensure the happiness of those people."

"You trust Narcissa?" Theo permitted a slight expression of surprise, of disbelief, to creep into his voice.

"She did lie to the Dark Lord on my behalf."

"There is that." Theo nodded, a deliberate idle gesture.

"And, if I'm not very much mistaken, you trust only two."

"Well, she's not _my_ mother, after all."

"There is," Draco drawled, "that."

"Theo," Hermione began but Draco cut her off. "Oh, be quiet, love. You've already shocked him enough for one afternoon. It's my turn. You have to share too, you know." She smothered a laugh at that and Theo wondered exactly how much she knew about their youthful escapades.

"I always rather envied you your muggles," Theo looked back at Draco, the two men making carefully nonchalant eye contact. "Your being able to drug yourself with sex, I mean. It never worked for me, unfortunately. I did try," he added to Draco's raised brow. "Muggles, witches. I found that casual contact just made me angrier, lonelier, than I had been before. I am, apparently, the ultimate romantic, unable to be happy with a meaningless liaison." He lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. 'What can you do?' his gesture seemed to ask. "It's pathetic, really. My father has been quite clear on his feelings about my, err, hesitation in that arena."

Hermione, who had turned to watch them as Theo was speaking, opened her mouth, then just as quickly shut it at Draco's quelling look.

"The first night you came over, I almost went mad with jealousy." Draco has adopted the same idle tone and Theo nodded. He remembered that. It had been fun to flirt with Hermione and watch Draco simmer; it had been an easy game pulled from their teen years and played out again in this flat – on this couch - as adults, casual, familiar and meaningless. Now that Hermione had become somewhat more than a mate's clever girlfriend, now that Draco looked at their flirtation with what seemed like more of a pleased proprietorship, of anticipation, rather than any kind of even the most idle resentment, well, it was a lot less familiar; he didn't know the rules anymore.

Rules were good. Rules kept you safe. Even if you broke them it was much better to know what they were, to know you had to skirt.

"After you left, she wrung me dry."

"And you're complaining about that?" Theo raised an eyebrow of his own, turned back to pull the comb through Hermione's hair again.

"No. It was…" Draco paused and seemed to consider his words. "It was a great night. She's - "

"There are things you really don't need to tell me." Theo cut him off and Draco laughed, a long, slow sound that historically had meant he was about to do something vicious. Theo narrowed his eyes as he slowly pulled the woman's hair into two separate sections, - not wanting to stop touching her even though every tangle was long smoothed away – and began to start plaiting one of them.

"You don't want to hear the details of how the woman you're slowly falling in love with can be utterly wanton in bed? Really?" Draco leaned over the back of the couch towards him and Theo tightened his mouth and refused to turn to look back at the man even as the blond put his mouth right near his ear. "She's amazing, truly and utterly amazing; she does this thing where she clenches her whole body and whimpers at the same time and, gods, I'm going to get hard just thinking about it. I cannot even tell you how much I love the feel of her, seeing the wicked little glint she gets in her eyes when she's deliberately goading me, hearing her bloody well beg me. Having Hermione Granger beg you to touch her, my friend, turns out to be one of life's flawless, perfect pleasures."

"What are you getting at?"

"She likes power," Draco said to that, watching Hermione lean back into Theo's touch. "She likes that I like power, which, let me tell you, is a bit terrifying. Any sensible woman would have run when she realized I was never going to be 'nice' but not this one. She likes – really likes – playing with how much she can shove at me before I turn around and bite back. After you left that night, after we fucked until I was raw, she asked if she'd gone too far, pushed me too hard."

"Had she?" Theo's tone was clipped, tense. It wasn't as if they'd never had conversations like this about women before but this was different. This was likely going someplace other than general leering and good-natured ribbing and, for the sake of all the gods, the woman they were talking about was sitting _right there_. She was leaning back against his knee as though this conversation were totally normal.

"No." Draco walked around the couch, sat down in the middle and casually draped one leg over the arm of the upholstered furniture. "I realized how utterly brilliant she was, how much I loved seeing you want her."

"So pleased I could be of service," Theo muttered.

"It's even better," Draco added, "seeing you love her."

Theo started in on the other braid, keeping his hands and eyes busy.

"Because it's obvious, of course, that you do. And she's bloody crazy about you. The woman can barely stand to be around her best friends and she spent the night in your bed and took you out for breakfast afterwards." Draco tipped his head back and looked at his friend. "I do realize that, in your life, love, or even the façade of such, has only come at a very high price. If it makes you feel any safer, makes this seem any more familiar, this won't be exactly free either. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me but, worse, you'll also have to put up with Potter and Weasley."

"They're…" Hermione started and Draco nudged her with the foot that wasn't propped over the arm of the couch and she fell silent again.

"Weasley," he drawled, "is waiting for an excuse to kill me and, let's be honest, adding Theo to our little family may well be the one he wants. I think he's sufficiently bourgeois to be horrified by this arrangement."

"So, the cost of sharing Hermione with you is fighting off a homicidal Weasley?" Theo tried not to smile but, somehow, the absurdity of the entire conversation had begun to charm him.

"Is that a yes, then?" Draco reached down to tug on one of Hermione's braids. "Gods, you look like an underage schoolgirl with those. It's appalling."

"I like them," she tossed her head and turned to look at the two men, Draco lounging across their couch like the endlessly irritating, thoroughly beloved son of privilege that he was, so utterly secure, at last, that he was shoving her at Theo like a book he might loan out. Theo watching her, his eyes as clouded and roiling as the sea on the day of a storm, the tiniest lilt of a smile tugging at his lips. Controlled, as always.

"That," Draco snorted, "is only because you haven't yet looked in a mirror. You just like that Theo played with your hair."

Theo turned to Draco, a polite, quizzical look on his face. "I take it schoolgirls aren't part of your fantasy repertoire? No old Hogwarts uniforms tucked under the bed? I can handle the marks on her wrists but, really, that might be too much."

"I prefer adults," the man replied, "they know what they're doing," and as Theo turned back to look at Hermione he found that she was right there, that she slipped her hands into his hair, her mouth only a paper's width away from his.

"Say yes," she murmured. "As slow and as controlled as you like, just tell me yes. Please, Theo."

Helplessly he closed his eyes and whispered, "yes."

The kiss was slow, almost tentative. Her lips pressed into his and he thought not only how soft she was but also how this was so much gentler than he'd expected from the woman Draco had described, so much less self-assured than he would have thought. It's as if she expected him to pull away, to…

Then he realized – of course she was afraid he'd pull away. She'd told him she loved him and he'd said _nothing. _She'd had to plead with him to let her kiss him and he was still sitting here, arms at his sides, almost unresponsive. He groaned and raised his hands to the back of her head and began to taste her, to explore the woman who sagged into him as soon as he touched her, who parted her lips beneath his, who, ever so slowly, ran her tongue along his own bottom lip.

"Come slowly – Eden," he murmured against her, "Lips unused to thee." He started to slide one hand down her back, pressing along the damp fabric of her shirt, moving his mouth to kiss along the edge of her jaw. She inhaled, a heady, breathy sound that promised so many things, but didn't complete the quote. "Have I stumped you?" he ran his tongue down the line of her neck and her fingers convulsed in his hair, yanking hard, actually hurting him, as she tipped her own head back.

"Something you should know about our Hermione," Draco laughed as he unwound one of the plaits in her hair. "Despite her ability to natter on at length about things like the impact the great vowel shift had on poetry or the slow erosion of the subjunctive in modern speech, she essentially loses all her verbal skills once you start playing with her."

"Really?" Theo nuzzled the base of her throat and felt, as well as heard, her whimper. He put his lips right at her ear and purred, "I just get better, which means, I think, that I win. That I know how to _always_ win. 'Sip thy jasmines', my love, 'as the fainting bee - ."

"Something about nectar," she whispered, "and that's cheating. You're cheating, Theo." She slipped her hands and head down against his chest, still kneeling in front of him but now leaning her head into him as though he were somehow shelter from a storm, and he placed his cheek against the top of her head, looked at Draco.

"Cheating is what I do, love," he murmured. "You should know that. Trained from childhood that, in the end, there's only one rule; win or die." Then, to Draco, "Thank you," he said, "Just… thank you."

"Lost in balms?" Draco reached out and put his hand on the back of Hermione's neck, tracking a little circle on her skin with his thumb.

"Found, maybe," Theo answered him, closing his eyes and smelling Hermione's hair, cool and damp against his cheek.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N - **__Come slowly – Eden / Lips unused to thee – / Bashful – sip thy jasmines – / as the fainting bee - / Reaching late his flower, / Round her chamber hums – / Counts his nectars – alights - / And is lost in balms! ~ Emily Dickinson. And if that poem's not hot, I don't know what is. It kills me – KILLS ME – that schools teach poetry as this dead thing. Would their Catullus walk that way? (A reference, within the citation, to 'The Scholars' by Yeats. Also a great poem which has a reference inside it to poems with lines like, "let us live and let us love" because nesting one's love poetry references is… well, it's probably a sign of sleep deprivation but whatever. Aren't you glad I'm not your English teacher?)_

_I pulled Theo's one rule from Madame Merteuil in Dangerous Liasons. _

_Thank you, truly, to those who have taken the time to review. It means a lot to me and I'm very grateful you take the time. FemAguila, thfourteenth, NotoriousNat, pianomouse, SusanMarieS, MCannon5887, Cpetrienm, Honoria Granger, Gunnhildde, JulieB, Grovek26, Analena, Kincaid Babe, Ev'rdeen, xXMiss Alec VolturiXx, Mistress Cinder, Meuba, LadiePhoenix007, Elle Leigh._


	7. 6 - You Should Be With Us

If life were a novel, of course, the decision to move forward with their little threesome would have been immediately followed by wild sex and an easing of the tensions that swirled around them. That was not, alas, the case. Theo found himself in the early stages of the strangest courtship imaginable, kissing a woman who slept in the bed of their other - roommate? partner? – while still sleeping in his own room, still watching her with guarded eyes. As slow and controlled as you like, she'd said. He wanted, desperately wanted, to just fall into bed with her, not slow or controlled at all, but instead merely brushed his hand across her hair, kissed her on the couch and wondered, still, what the rules were.

Was he supposed to just pull her into his room and have his wicked way with her? How was he supposed to know if that was truly okay with Draco? More, would she even be interested in him if he couldn't pin her down – and he was quite sure there was no way he could tie her up. Just thinking about that, and he had thought about it and at some length, made him nervous. How was he supposed to know if she were willing if he had her held down? He doesn't really trust his own instincts here, not after all those years of seeing so many who weren't. How did he end up with this woman who seemed designed to pull open his scars? Why could nothing ever be easy?

And, of course, he doesn't want to be the boring one. Gods. If he and Draco are sleeping with the same woman how can they avoid competing? He doesn't want to lose.

So he watched her every day, and watched Draco, and read his books, and wondered what the hell he was doing. Watched her, again, today, as she bent over some paper at her desk, as Draco ignored them both, he marveled at little things like the way she pushed her feet against the back of her desk while she worked, the way she had so many books piled around her she barely had room to write. Funny how a person's quirks could become so endearing. Funny thing, love.

When Hermione laughed – an actual out loud full laugh - at her desk Draco looked up from the table where he was sitting with a cup tea and the financial pages. "Something funny in the world of strong and weak nouns today?"

"Oh, I'm not working on my translation." She folded up a piece of paper and set it aside. "I'm reading the mail. Your mother sends her regards, by the way."

Theo looked from one of them to the other. Hermione's head was bent back down over her desk. She'd pulled out another piece of paper and was writing something, stopping to chew on the end of her pen every few words. Draco had narrowed his eyes and was watching her, assessing the effort she was putting into whatever she was writing. "Do I dare ask what my mother said that was so funny?"

"Probably not," Hermione was crossing something out, not really paying attention to him. "You tend to find my relationship with her frightening, though I've never been quite sure why."

"It's because you underestimate her capacity for general unpleasantness," he muttered, still watching her back with a worried squint, "as well, of course, as my willingness to read your mail to make sure she's not up to something."

Hermione snorted but held out the note from Narcissa behind her; Theo plucked it from her fingers and, when Draco nodded, unfolded it. He skimmed it and frowned. "This must be in girl because I don't see anything funny."

"What does she say?" Draco folded up his paper and headed into the kitchen.

"She just says she and my mother used to be friends, that she was happy to hear you and I had taken up where we left off at school, that..."

"She said what?" Draco set the cup in his hand down on the counter with enough force that the sound rattled through the room.

Both men looked at each other, then at Hermione, who sighed, set her pen down, and turned around. "Are you bothered she and Theo's mother used to be a thing, or that she knows you two were? Or is it that I find how that woman always knows everything funny that has you upset?"

Draco hurried forward, hands free now, and snatched the letter out of Theo's hands. "What do you mean about them 'being a thing'?" He read through the note again. "I don't see anything about that in here."

Hermione rolled her eyes and reached her hand out for the note. Draco passed it to Theo, who handed it back to her. She began to read aloud, "'Dearest Hermione, You may not know that Theo's mother and I were dear friends in school, much as Draco and Theo were.' How else am I supposed to interpret that?"

"Wait," Theo studied her. "How did you know about..."

"You two in school?" She tipped her head to the side and her mouth quirked upward in a smile she seemed to be trying to hide.

"Well, yes." He suddenly had the feeling he'd just stepped into a trap. "'_Bait on purpose laid to make the taker mad'_," he muttered under his breath as he watched her.

She looked like she was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smirking at him as she said, "_'Mad in pursuit, and in possession so_.' Don't insult me with the easy ones, Theo. And, about you two," she shrugged, "I wasn't wholly sure until just now when you so nicely confirmed it."

"You... that was so... so Slytherin of you!" Theo felt his jaw actually drop so his mouth was hanging open. The little sneak! And now she was openly smirking at him.

"I guess you two are a bad influence." She looked far too pleased with herself, especially with that look on her face.

Theo watched her, sitting there at her desk and, then, with a quick decision and equally quick motion grabbed her from her seat, spun her around and dumped her onto the couch whereupon he straddled her and smirked right back; this, at least, was a game he knew how to play. "I am going to find some way of revenge, you know. It's not acceptable to be outsnuck..."

"'Outsnuck'? Is that even a word?" She was grinning at him now, an ink stain from the pen she'd been chewing on coloring one corner of her mouth, her fingers splayed out against his chest. Theo felt his face soften in an answering smile. He'd dreaded – actually dreaded – the reveal of their history, afraid she'd be, what? Upset? Repulsed? And instead she was teasing him about vocabulary of all things.

The little reveal about his mother and Narcissa Malfoy, well he'd deal with that later. It's not like he would ever really trust anything Narcissa said anyway.

For now he looked down at the woman under him with her big smile and her hands playing with the buttons on his shirt. "Are you harassing me about vocabulary? Uncle me no uncle, missy, or I'll make you eat Draco's cooking!"

"That's not even fair," she was laughing up at him through hair that had fallen in her face, through those eyelashes, and he reached down, brushed the hair off her face.

"Fair?" he asked in mock disbelief. "You trick me into revealing secrets you knew I was keeping and then you talk to me about fair?" Bending down so his lips were right at her ear he added in a whisper, "besides, what has made you think I play fair?"

She reached up, wrapped her hands in his hair as he nuzzled against her neck and everything was going along in lovely ways until her fingers caught in some knot in the back of his hair and he yelped at the shock. "Gods," he swore. "I need to find a way to keep your fingers out of my hair."

"Sorry," she was patting at the back of his head when Draco, who'd moved to stand at the end of the couch above her head, said, "hands?" She slowly lifted her arms above her head and Draco grabbed her wrists, the letter from his mother still in his hand.

"This would do it," the man drawled and Theo looked at them, at Draco's lazy, assessing glance, at Hermione's steady evaluation. He must have given something away, some flicker of the nervousness churning in his stomach, because Draco let her go and she put a hand at the back of his neck, pulled him back down to her, and whispered, "or I could just be more careful."

"That would work," he agreed, trying to hide his relief, adding, "minx." He brushed her nose with his and set his lips lightly against hers. "I will get revenge," he breathed, trying to recenter himself in something with which he was considerably more comfortable. "I can't be outmaneuvered by you, that's just wrong." He trailed his fingers up along her side until he had them tangled up in her hair and their kiss had progressed from the lightest of touches to a passion that had him moaning into her mouth.

"If," Draco had squatted by them on the floor, "I could be so rude as to interrupt you two, are you sure this is wise?" He held up the note Hermione had been writing and as she turned her head to look at it, Theo sat back up, leaning back on his heels, glaring bemusedly at Draco.

"I'm just writing Harry."

"That's my concern," Draco leaned in and kissed her himself, oh so lightly, and Theo watched as that blond hair fell forward over the woman's face. "I think you might be overestimating his... tolerance."

Hermione shook her head. "If he could accept you - and, let's face it, he hated you with what bordered on obsession - why would Theo be a problem?"

"It's not Theo," Draco rolled his eyes. "It's that it's both of us. Hermione," he said, his tone filled with warning, "I'm asking you not to do this."

She propped herself up at that and really looked at him. "Are you serious?"

"Please," he looked first at her, then up at Theo. "Let me have this for a while without having to justify it your friends. Let us all become more… comfortable with this. Let us figure this out. I know we'll have to tell them but, just for now, please don't. I don't think it's going to go well."

"You're really worried about this?" Hermione asked, watching Draco carefully.

"You aren't?"

"No," she shook her head. "Ron may yell a bit but… I know it's hard to explain but they're… our friendship isn't the kind of thing this could affect at all."

"I think you're naïve," Draco sighed. "Or maybe I'm jealous of a bond so absolute. And, sorry love, but I'm being selfish here and am thinking far less about your friendship than… this. Than the way the strain of having them yell at you, at me, at Theo, will … hurt us. Hurt this. Either way, please, please, just wait."

"All right," Hermione lay her hand on his face and he leaned into it until she pulled him forward towards her and put her forehead onto his. "You know I'd do anything for you." Theo has never seen this side of the two of them; usually they're all confidence and banter, usually Draco wears his increasing political and commercial power like a comfortable jacket. This side of his old friend, this wary, wounded man who's quite sure anything he values will get ripped away from him, has been in hiding. Theo felt – no, knew - seeing the two of them lean into one another, seeing Draco swallow hard at Hermione's reassurance, that he was watching something so much more intimate than any of their ridiculous sex games.

It hit him, watching Draco pull comfort from Hermione, that what the man was afraid of wasn't losing the woman. He _had_ the woman, had some kind of acceptance from her friends, some kind of guarantee that their relationship wouldn't a battle-ground for the trio. What the man was worrying about was losing… him.

"Why," Theo finally asked as the shock of that realization rolled through him. "Why write him?"

She looked at him, above her on the couch, and he swore she looked confused. "I didn't want you to think I was ashamed of you," she said simply and he had that strange sensation of the world twisting around him again.

Then she smiled at Draco, a mischievous grin that would make any smart man nervous. "I'll do as you ask so long as you two tell me what happened between you at school."

Draco looked up at him, an obvious question in his grey eyes. Theo shrugged and moved so he was leaning against the corner of the couch, pulled the woman who he'd been kissing minutes earlier so she was held in front of him, one arm wrapped around her with faux casualness. Draco sat next to them, still tense, still holding Hermione's half written note in his hand. She plucked it away and, crumpling it up, tossed it towards the fireplace.

She missed.

"You really do have terrible hand-eye coordination," Draco mocked, running one hand over her leg, his eyes clouded and worried. Was it the fear of revealing their unconventional arrangement to her friends that had him backing into himself, teasing her about her throwing skills, or was he dreading revealing details of their little schooldays liaison?

"Not one but _two_ athletes. What was I thinking," Hermione was muttering in apparent exasperation, but Theo could feel by the way she lounged against him she wasn't truly bothered.

"I'm not really an athlete," he laughed at her, keeping the conversation skimming at this easy, shallow surface. "I'm just not helplessly incompetent at throwing or catching."

She mimed elbowing him at that and he bent his head down and kissed her neck. "Be nice to me, love. It's hardly my fault you can't throw."

"So…" she trailed the word out. "Your adolescent escapades?"

Theo sighed. She really did want to know. "It's not really that exciting. Boys in boarding school. It happens. We all, and I do mean all, assumed your little friends, Potter and Weasley…"

She snorted at that. "I think I would have noticed if they were."

"Maybe not," Draco picked up her hand and started to play with her fingers. "No one noticed us for a bit. If Pansy hadn't been a bloody stalker no one would have." Theo watched the man slip his fingers in and around hers; he could feel her breathing as she leaned back against him and he wondered how much of this patience – this comfort with silence – was something inherent to her or something she'd learned from Draco. Letting silence play out had always been one of the blond man's techniques for getting people to reveal themselves.

"I think I've mentioned," Theo finally started, "that my father's ideas of excellence in entertaining included copious alcohol, good food, and a selection of unwilling women. If every party can't quite be a dark revel there was no reason, in his mind, to not still provide your guests with just a taste of those 'delights.'" He paused and closed his eyes, counted with slow deliberation to ten, first once and then again. "I try not to think about it; it's not something I ever want to see again."

"If this is too hard," Hermione started, twisting in his arms to look up at him, "I just meant to tease you, not dredge up…" but he shook his head.

"It's fine." He waited a bit, then, thinking about those parties, about being a Death Eater's child. He thinks, not infrequently, that people aren't exactly wrong when they refuse to acknowledge him. "I was not, shall we say, aroused by the sights his little parties afforded me and, as it seemed I was the only one who wasn't, it occurred to me that perhaps the problem was that I simply didn't like girls."

Draco picked up the thread of the conversation. "I, at least, knew I liked girls – you may have noticed that – but sixth year of school was not, for me, a good year. I'd figured out just a wee bit too late that I was in over my head. I was terrified of what my seemingly inevitable failure would bring and everyone wanted something from me, everyone was watching me. Greg and Vince had been, I'm still sure, assigned to keep an eye on me, Pansy seemed to be trying to glue herself to my side. It was thoroughly awful and the only person who didn't seem to have an agenda was Theo."

"So…," Theo tightened his arms around the woman he was holding, "we had a brief affair. It was not especially lurid and I think what we mostly figured out was that we were friends and nothing else."

"Also," Draco drawled, "that skill at fellatio is not actually gender dependent."

"True," Theo agreed.

"That," she murmured after the quiet had lingered for a bit, "sounds like a challenge. And you know how impulsive I am about challenges."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – **__More in the slow progression towards… wherever it is they're going. Unlike both of the other fics I have going on right now this is not actually outlined and I really have no idea what will happen. I swear, things just fall out of my brain and I write them down. Though, I suppose fellatio is being fairly heavily foreshadowed. _

"… _a swallowed bait,_ / _On purpose laid to make the taker mad._ / _Mad in pursuit and in possession so;" from Sonnet 129 by Shakespeare. The whole poem is about lust._

_"__Uncle me no uncle" Richard II, Act 2 Scene 3. Really it's just an example of the flexibility of language, verbing nouns and nouning verbs. English is a living language; we get to do that. _

_Thank you to everyone who took time to review. Artemisgodess, Darc-lover, LB123, Mistress Cinder, LadiePhoenix007, love-them-all10, Analena, Grovek26, dulce de leche go, Honoria Granger, thfourteenth, cpetrienm, GTH, batcat4eternity, Susan Marie S, Elle Leigh, pianomouse, CGinny, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx_


	8. 7 - Men Prey on Each Other

Before he left to visit his father, his regular monthly visit to the underworld, Theo found he had to deal with Hermione. She had a box of _something_ she was forcing into his hand. "For the guards," she said, "from me. Please give it to them."

He looked at her; a Hermione with a scheme was a Hermione to be wary of. He didn't want to end up squiring her around at the next Ministry ball to try to mitigate whatever she was plotting now. "What, love, are you doing?"

"I've been thinking," she said, and Theo could hear Draco groaning from the other room. "Cookies make people more… amenable. So I'm sending a box of cookies to the guards with a little note from me. Just… hand it over to them before you go visit that miserable excuse for a human being who fathered you. It will be fine."

"Don't hold back," he said, eyebrows raised. "Tell me how you really feel about the man."

"Oh, my sweet Theo," she kissed him on the cheek, very lightly, "I am holding back. One of these days your father and I will have a little chat of our own. But, for now, just bring the guards some cookies and I'll see you when you get back."

"Did you bake them yourself?" He looked at the box; the guards were, after years of monthly visits, civil to him. If he brought them rock hard cookies, or things with raw middles, they might go back to openly hating him. It _looked_ like something from a shop but packaging could be deceiving.

"I was hoping to soften them up towards you, not poison them."

He choked back a laugh. While she's allowed to poke fun at her own kitchen ineptitude the last time he'd teased her on the matter he'd ended up hurting her feelings. "Do I at least get to read the note?"

At that she did was smile. "Trust me," she said, pushing him out the door.

And so he'd gone to visit the wretched man and handed over Hermione's cookies to the guard who checked him in. "From my flatmate," he'd muttered, surprisingly uncomfortable with bringing hardened guards _cookies_ of all things. "How's he doing today?"

"In and out of coherence," the man had replied, hefting the bakery box appreciatively. "He's been worse, but been better too."

That was a description that could have easily been applied to the whole visit. For the first twenty minutes Nott Senior had just sat in his chair, ranting incoherently about globberworms. Theo had looked at him, this sad broken man who didn't even realize he was in a prison, that he'd never escape, never see sun again, never see stars slowly fading into existence. This man, this man had terrorized his childhood, had tried to bring a sadistic monster into power and now he was nothing but an unpleasant obligation. It was hard to see the man who'd broken people the way a toddler breaks toys in the shell that remained until a tiny light of sanity broke through and Nott Senior said, "Globberworms aside, you're still a faggot, boy."

It was such a completely surreal change of subject – Theo's not even sure what a 'globberworm' is – that it's almost funny. "You know," Theo said, staring at the man, "you say that as though it were the worst possible thing you could call me, and you're a _Death Eater_. That's rich, _Dad_."

"Watch your manners, boy!"

Theo stood to go. He'd had enough; whatever penance these visits served, he'd surely met his quota of self-flagellation for this month. "I'll see you next month, father. If there's anything I can bring you to make your incarceration more comfortable, please let me know." The courtesy, like so many things beaten into him, was more automatic than sincere.

The man said nothing until Theo was at the door, then added. "You're a sniveling loser. It's pathetic. I'm grateful your mother died before she could see what a coward she had for a son."

Theodore Nott walked out without pausing, without looking back, and, closing the door behind him, stood in the hallway outside the visitors room, breathing hard. He needed Hermione. He needed Draco. He needed a glass – no, a bottle – of good wine and good company to share it with. He needed to stop living trapped in the hell this man had built for him, but he's not sure how. Wine and friends seemed like as good a place to start as any.

That was when he overhead the guards talking. "Hermione Granger sent us cookies. Just… damn. It's like having Harry bleedin' Potter stop by for a visit to tell you you're doing a good job."

"I wonder," another voice, "What she's doing living with the Nott brat."

"Saw a spread of her and another one of them Death Eater kids in the paper, the Malfoy one. I thought they were together."

"Maybe she likes Death Eaters." There was a crude laugh at that and someone added, "Everyone's got a kink."

You have no idea, Theo thought, remembering the myriad ways he's seen Draco pin Hermione up against walls and counters and tables. He wondered whether the laughing guards would have been titillated or horrified by the way their war heroine had sat on his lap last night, her head back on his shoulder while the other 'Death Eater kid' in their household had knelt over her and kissed her, nearly bruising her mouth, leaving a line of bites down the side of her neck. He wondered how shocked they would be to know the reason she'd gasped when he, the 'Nott brat' had reached around her to hold her hands had been because he'd inadvertently held her own arms down, restrained her against her own body. He wondered if they'd let him walk out of here in one piece if they knew he'd held her tighter when he'd heard that gasp.

Did holding a woman against you while she whimpered at your neck, while her other boyfriend began to slowly unbutton her shirt, while that man watched not her but you, did that make his father's taunt accurate? Or not? The tactile experience had been wholly different, more armful of girl than warm mouth, but looking down at that blond head he'd remembered their adolescent games and the memories had been... good. The memories had been really good. Did that, he wondered, fulfill if not the letter than the spirit of his father's little slur. He suspected it did.

He's started to wonder if he cares. Let his father rot in here, ranting about globberworms. He was going home.

. . . . . . . . .

"How'd it…" Hermione stopped asking how it went when she saw him set two bottles down on the table. "That good, huh?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Theo said with a tight smile. "Two bottles of wine spread among three people is barely enough to get – "

"Uh huh." She pulled herself off the couch and moved over to him, wrapped her arms around him and buried her head against him and he held on, a drowning man who's found someone to keep him above the waves. "Your father and I are definitely going to have words."

"What makes you think he'd listen to you?"

"Oh, he'll listen," she said without elaborating.

"The guards said thank you for the cookies," he added, breathing in the scent of her hair, shampoo and girl and love all mixed into one perfume. "They seemed surprised you were living with me."

"Mmm? Fortunately I don't require the approval of total strangers, even the ones I bribe into complacency with cookies." She's released him and gone to get glasses from her kitchen. From their kitchen. I live, he thought to himself, with Hermione Granger, war heroine. By her I am loved, he thought. I love. I am loved. I will love.

Corkscrew in hand she was deftly opening one of the bottles when Draco emerged from his office.

"Post-father wine?" he asked.

"Could be worse. Could be post-father catatonic staring at the wall." Hermione poured the wine into three glasses and Theo took his, looked down at the excellent vintage – the wine shop didn't have the same issues with him the patisserie did – and sighed. "I hate that man."

"What did he do this time?" Hermione wrapped her arm back around him and leaned against his side.

"Just," Theo shook his head, "whatever he could think of." He looked over her head at Draco. "The usual. I'm not living up to his expectations, expressed in a fairly unpleasant manner." He took a not insubstantial drink from his glass and then added, "His interest in my sexuality is becoming a trifle disturbing."

"Wants that heir, huh?" Draco snorted, sidestepping the subtext, and Theo rolled his eyes. The bizarre burden of being the sole remaining scion of an aristocratic house was something they had in common even if Narcissa was significantly less pushy on the subject of when the babies would come. "I wonder how we'd divvy up heirs in this odd little situation we're in."

Both men looked at Hermione who narrowed her eyes and said, "Well, if you're planning on my uterus being involved, you're basically ending your pureblood lines anyway, so I can't see how it would matter."

Draco laughed at that and raised his glass towards her and Theo, standing together, "To us, as we figure it out."

. . . . . . . . . .

Whatever else confused him about their situation – and there was certainly plenty to be confused about - Theo was quite certain that being part of their triad meant he got to help deal with the nightmares. Therefore that night, when he heard Hermione scream out, he didn't stand with fists balled, feeling helpless in the living room as he had before. Instead he let himself into their room and, when Draco tipped his head sharply towards the other side of the bed, slipped in and let Hermione turn to him, cry against his chest, wracking, gasping sobs that spoke to some internal horror. She choked and shook and far too slowly calmed herself down until she was just pressing a damp face to him. Draco had moved up behind her and was running a hand in slow circles over her back.

"How often," Theo looked at him over her body.

"Often enough," the other man said grimly.

"Hermione, love," he looked down at her, put a finger under her chin to tip her face up towards him, "talk to me. What's terrifying you?"

"Usually," Draco answered for her when she just shook her head, "it's some variation on my aunt torturing her."

"Gods, that woman was a menace," Theo muttered. "Utterly insane. The world is better off without her." He wrapped his hand behind Hermione's head and began to drop soft kisses onto her forehead and down the side of one cheek. "I'm right here, sweetheart. Whatever was going on in your head isn't real. We're both right here, it's okay."

"What happened this time?" Draco was still circling his hand on her back.

She shook her head again and Theo stopped kissing her hairline. "Talk to us, Hermione. Don't stay locked inside your head."

She inhaled and shuddered. "It was just… it's hard to believe… you two." She paused and then said, desperately, "But I'm a _mudblood_. How can you…?"

Theo cringed. "Please…"

"You laughed about it for _years_. Most people still think it. They don't _say it_ of course. That would be… uncouth. Vulgar. Look at the Ministry. How many muggle-borns have positions of any power?" She's pulled back from him and as Theo reached a hand out to her something in his stomach clenched when she backs further away from his touch.

"None." Theo said quietly. "There are none."

"Two Slytherin princes," she closed her eyes. "That's what she said. You can't be so stupid as to think they really want you. Men like to roll in the mud. Doesn't mean they don't wash it all off when they're done."

"Your dream?" Draco asked, bending his head down over her shoulder.

"Bellatrix," she said.

"Even in your nightmares that woman's a fucking horror," Theo put his hand on the side of her face. "Don't take relationship advice from a woman who was in love with Voldemort, that's my suggestion." She smiled a little bit at that and he drew his thumb over her lips, tracing that smile. "I know we were awful to you. I know the world still... it isn't fair. I'm sorry. I wish I had some way to take it back."

"I'm just your own little mud-" she started again before he cut her off, putting his hand over her mouth.

"Don't," he said. "Just…don't. I understand reclaiming language, love, I do." He shook his head and then dragged her across the space between them in order to pull her into a tight hug. "Just... have a little pity on me, on the both of us, even if we don't deserve it, and don't rub our past sins in our faces like that. Please, because I'm not sure I can bear hearing you talk about yourself that way."

He buried his face in her curls, grateful beyond words that she was allowing him to comfort her again. He wished he could go back in time and bring Bellatrix back just to kill her again. He'd always believed he wasn't a killer, couldn't be a killer. He thought he might be able to make an exception.

Not, of course, that's it's _really_ Bellatrix haunting her. His father, maybe. Hard to miss she'd had a bad one the night he returned from visiting that monster. Hard to miss they'd talked about heirs and she'd made a biting comment about how she'd destroy both of their bloodlines so their heirs didn't really matter. Hard to miss she'd followed that up with a nightmare about not being good enough; internalized prejudice was, he thought, one bitch of a demon.

It kind of killed him that she was still afraid they might not want her - might not adore her - because of her birth.

It's because you taunted her with slurs for years, a small voice whispered in his head. I didn't, he objected, but he knew he'd laughed when Draco had. That they all had.

"Let me tell you a story," he said as he held her against him. "Once upon a time there was a prince. Like all princes in stories he grew up in what could pass for a castle, and, like so many princes, his mother died when he was young, leaving him in the care of a father who was indifferent at best, more often cruel."

Hermione shifted in his arms so she could see his face and, seeing that searching look, seeing the fear that still rested on her, an ugly scarf gifted by an equally ugly woman, by his own laughter as a boy, he pulled her tight for a moment before releasing her to continue.

"The prince's father rode off to war, and the prince hid in the shadows. He was afraid to fight, afraid to tell his father he didn't want to ride at his side. He watched battles, always lurking back where no one would see him, and when the war was over, when the prince's father had been vanquished, the prince himself slipped back into the darkness and starlight where he could hide."

"I'm not sure," Draco interrupted, his face still leaning up against Hermione's back, "you have a future as a writer."

Hermione managed to kick him in the shin, though the awkwardness of her angle made it more of a glancing blow than a direct hit, and he grinned at her, rubbing his nose on her shoulder blade. "So violent. I think you have a fan, Theo, she didn't care for my critique."

"You be quiet," she muttered.

"So," Theo pressed another kiss onto the top of her head before continuing, "One day the prince found himself at a party with the sorceress who'd helped the other side win in the war he'd so carefully avoided and, as it turned out, she was beautiful and brilliant and kind and, more than that, was the only person in years who hadn't despised him because of who he was. And, as princes in stories who come across such sorceresses are wont to do, he fell madly in love with her."

Hermione looked up at his face at that, a worried, unsure light in her eyes.

"Yes, love," he kissed her hair again. "I love you and anyone who'd deal with you and Draco at the same time is, by definition, mad."

"I think I should be hurt by that," Draco nuzzled the back of Hermione's neck again and, when Theo muttered "or flattered," he choked back a laugh by pressing his mouth firmly against her skin.

"What happens next?" Hermione asked.

"Well," Theo shrugged, "Apparently the girl was haunted by nightmares that told her that because the prince _was_ a prince he couldn't possibly really love her, even if he was a cowardly prince who spent most of his time hiding, so he decided to spend years convincing her of his sincerity."

"I think your ending is a bit weak," Draco said, "lacking in details."

Theo gave the other man an annoyed look and Draco laughed again.

"I don't think he was a coward," Hermione murmured against his chest.

"Yes, well, I'm not exactly comfortable with calling him a prince. We all have our crosses to bear in this narrative." Silence settled around them for a bit before she asked, "Do you really…" Her voice trailed off.

"Do you have to ask?" He looked down at her, huddled against him, and added, "_'Yes, we had heard music together. Yes, we had gone to the sea together._' Yes, I love you, you mad, wonderful, amazing woman. You and Draco both, may all the gods help me."

"'_Yes_'," she whispered, "_'we were looking at each other_'."

She waited a long time then, in silence, and Theo almost thought she had fallen asleep when she added, "I'm glad."

"I'm glad you're glad," he kissed her hair. "Sleep. Tomorrow let's go loot my father's library together. All the rare books your little heart desires."

And there they slept, the three of them tangled up with sheets and fears and fingers touching and dreams that scared them all.

. . . . . . . . .

_**A/N**__ Thank you to everyone who reads and responds to this. Some chapters kind of fall out fully formed, rather like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. This one was more of a protracted labor with forceps and pitocin. _

_Theo and Hermione are quoting from "Looking at Each Other," by Muriel Rukeyser_

_I have two other fics I'm writing as well. One of them is sort of not so nice. The other one is not nice at all but the person I'm co-writing it with is. You should read them too. *big, hopeful smile*_

_And, of course, you know I thrill to your reviews. _

_Many thanks to my wonderful reviewers: Eternal-Glade, lakelady8425, krux-malfoy, Lady of the King, Analena, thfourteenth, christianandgloria, pianomouse, GTH, Grovek26, JennyFelton, ladymagna1100, Honoria Granger, love-them-all10, Gunnhildde, LB123, LadiePhoenix007, my name is mommy, dulce de leche go, Ev'rdeen, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, cpetrienm (I am very sporadically on H&V and need to edit a chapter for them; my inability to spell quidditch will be my undoing over there; I will check out your story.), batcat4eternity, Artemisgodess._


	9. 8 - Hunting is Over

Hermione stood in front of one of the shelves, her hand not quite touching the books. "Theo," she walked a few steps down, stopped again. "Some of these, I think they're banned."

He shrugged and sat down in one of the window seats, feet up on a stool, arms leaning on his own knees. "So are some of the books in your own shop." His library didn't rival the Malfoy's collection, of course, but his father had been sloppy about keeping dangerous books under lock and key so there, in the sunlit room, tucked between innocuous texts on history and local fauna, were tomes explaining how to do the darkest of magics. He'd always liked this room as a child; it had huge windows with built in seats, just perfect for a boy to hide away, and, of course, his father rarely bothered with the library making it a sanctuary. This had been his space and he liked sitting here now, feeling the sun on his back and watching her pick through the eclectic offerings within it. He'd promised her all the dark books she wanted; clearly she'd thought he'd been exaggerating. He would have just hauled the whole lot back to her shop if there'd been room for them all; as it was, she'd have to consider this room a kind of luxurious storage unit because, as far as he was concerned, they were all hers.

She was still walking around the room, almost in a daze. "This is amazing. Gods, Theo. These are worth a small fortune."

He laughed at that. "I know you tend to forget it, dove of mine, but, even though I am the poorer of your two boyfriends, I'm rather wealthy. Even after war reparations, and fines, and my father's not insubstantial legal fees I could still pretty much buy you anything your heart desired."

"I assume by 'rather wealthy'," Draco snorted, "you mean 'filthy stinking rich.'" He'd settled down into a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. When they'd been about to leave their flat on this trip to Nott Manor in search of books, he'd emerged from his office, coat in hand, and had joined them. "You didn't think," he'd said to Theo, "I'd let you endure that place alone if I knew you were going?"

Theo had been taken aback; Draco Malfoy as even slightly considerate of other people's feelings was still a bit of a shocker. Hermione had just nodded though, and, slipping her hand into the blond's, had said, "Well, lead on, sweet one."

Hermione twisted now to glance at them both, a quick dismissive look before she returned her attention to the stacks of books. "I can buy my own things, thanks." Both men laughed and Theo looked at Draco who shrugged. "She's not exactly a materialist."

"And I _do _have my own funds, you know" she was running her finger one inch out from the spines of the books.

"She did let me give her a necklace without arguing," Draco continued. "Once."

"The world?" Theo had seen the pendant a few times, she usually had it tucked away under her shirt and he had a suspicion she rarely took it off.

"Mmm. She originally seemed a bit resistant to the idea of my giving her the actual world – "

"I've gotten over that. Conquering the world of commerce seems to make you happy." Hermione still didn't turn around as she began gently pulling books off the shelf, flipping through them and returning them to their spaces.

"Yes, but _you_ don't want it." Theo watched Draco as he gazed at Hermione with a casual fondness that belied how fiercely the man adored her. Even now, in private, the rules of childhood – don't reveal, exposure is vulnerability, never let people know how much you care about anything – held sway.

"It's more that I'm indifferent to it." She seemed to have finally found a book that caught her eye and was reading it with more focus than she'd given any others so far, though she did stop to look at him. "Books, tea, you, Theo. You both happy. Peace to enjoy all those things. That's all I want."

"Books I can give you," Theo said. "Am, in fact."

"Peace too," she murmured, looking back down at what was clearly about to become her book, the one she was going to bring home with her. She must have felt them looking at her because she sighed and set the book down before walking over to them.

Hers, she thought fondly, looking at them. Draco, all angles and sharp edges, pale as ice and almost as brittle under his sophisticated polish but, for all that, he was a straightforward man. He trusted almost no one, loved almost no one, and was ruthlessly, utterly loyal to the handful of people he even recognized as real. She kissed the top of his head and rested her cheek on that pale hair for a moment thinking how peculiar and wonderful love was before joining Theo on the window seat. If Draco was ice, she thought, this one was water; contained and placid on the surface with no hint of the roiling currents that flowed beneath, no hint of whatever wretched memories this house, surely evoked marring his apparent calm.

No wonder his own nightmares were so violent he had to be restrained from hurting himself, no wonder he repressed them so thoroughly he couldn't even remember them in the morning. He controlled himself down to every eyelash flicker, so tightly bound by fear and caution he could barely move. Whenever that dam broke everything came flooding out until he could wall himself up again.

She leaned into his shoulder, kissed the fabric of his shirt before setting down against him. "You never saw me when I was waking screaming every night, Theo. There were days when it seemed like there was always a cliff, just out of sight, letting me know I could jump off of it at any time. Draco made that better, you make that better. So, yes, peace. Peace because of you, both of you." She sat for a bit, feeling him breathe as she pressed herself along his side, watching Draco turn and watch them as they sat together, his own enigmatic smile on his face. "I love you," she mouthed at him, and his smile quirked upward a little. Theo eventually put his arm around her, and seemed to sigh. She said, quietly, "I don't want to ever lose that peace, that safety, not ever."

"That's good, dove," Theo murmured, "because I would be most upset at having to give you up."

"Then don't," Draco said, bluntly practical. "I'm certainly not going to."

"Theo," Hermione pulled away from him a bit and smiled at him, one of her slightly more worrying smiles, "you are going to start sleeping with us now, right? After last night?"

"Are you being literal or metaphorical," he asked, watching her, a nervous twinge in his stomach, a significantly less nervous twinge somewhat lower.

"Yes," she said, and Draco echoed her from his chair. "Yes."

He looked from one of them to the other. "You two are rather terrifying, did you know that?"

"I did survive both my father and living with a psychotic wizard," Draco snorted.

"And I helped to bring down said wizard," Hermione leaned back up against Theo. "Of course we're terrifying." He took her hand just as she added, "It's just that we love you."

"Utterly and completely terrifying," he repeated.

"And," she said in a plaintive voice, "I'm starting to think you don't want me."

Theo looked up at Draco, trapped, but the man was just smirking at him; he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as if to say, 'This is your problem.'

"I just... I don't want to overstep," Theo muttered. Where, he wondered, were the rules for this? He doesn't know, hasn't known, what he's supposed to do. Now, he thinks, he's only managed to make her feel bad when all he'd wanted was to tread lightly. Later Draco will tell him to look for the glint in her eye. "That," he'll say, "will let you know when she's being manipulative. She's reasonably good but that tell gives her away every time."

"And you didn't clue me in to this because?" Theo will ask, rolling his eyes but too pleased with the final outcome to be really annoyed, and Draco will just laugh and say, "Because subtler invitations to just join us already weren't working. You can be a bit over-cautious, you know."

"Of course I want you," he muttered, twining his fingers through hers. "This is just all… very strange."

"You do?" Hermione glanced down, eyes on the floor and Theo had this terrible feeling he's somehow said the wrong thing again until she looked back up at him with a very smug smirk. "Then prove it." He gaped at her as her smile slowly warmed, as she lifted her free hand to his face and said, "_'Teach me to sin'_, Theodore, '_in love's forbidden ways_… _Make me love you. Make me fire your blood with new desire_'."

"I can't – " he murmured and she cut him off.

"Oh, you can, love."

"I was going to say," he took her hand and kissed her fingertips. "I don't think I know that one."

"I'll teach it to you," she whispered and he lifted her gently from the seat to the floor and bent over her, his mouth on hers, tasting her and thinking, this time it's not going to end in aching solitude, feeling, as she'd said, his blood fired. "'_Teach me'_," he murmured against her lips, "'_to hear mermaids singing_'."

"Right," said Draco, standing up and grabbing the book Hermione had left on the table. "Home, then?"

"Home," Theo agreed.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco held her arms back and Theo tensed even as he watched Hermione lick her lips. He traced his fingers over her cheekbones, along her jaw and felt himself harden against his will, against his better judgment, as she closed her eyes and whimpered softly at his touch. "You won't go too far," Draco murmured. "She'll tell you to stop if you do, and I'm right here." Theo shot his friend a glance and the man smiled at him, a slow, dangerous smile that reminded him of days before the war, before they'd both been broken. "Playtime," the blond whispered and Theo nodded, slowly, and looked down at the witch between them, lying propped on Draco. He pulled his wand out and drew it, gently, down over her blouse and watched the fabric split beneath it, fall to the sides. That necklace Draco had given her was lying on her skin, sparkling even in this dim light. Hermione's breath had started to hitch and he ran a finger down the line where her bra met her skin. He'd seen her rumpled, he'd seen her curled up next to him, he'd seen her in various states of casual undress wandering around their flat. He'd never seen her laid out like this, like an offering, like a present.

"Gods," he breathed, cupping one breast, running one thumb over the silk still covering her nipple and feeling it harden under his touch. "You are so beautiful."

She opened her eyes and regarded him from under her lashes. "You aren't so bad yourself," she said and he shook his head and put his fingers over her lips.

"Don't. Don't talk. You'll break whatever spell you've put me under." He lowered his head and sucked on her hardened nipple through the fabric and felt her stiffen under him. When he pulled back and blew on the wet silk she gasped and he heard Draco's low laughter, felt the man shift himself to get more comfortable under the woman he was holding, pinned, on top of himself. Another quick line with his wand and the bra was rent in two, and another cutting line and he was able to pull it away, toss it to the floor. He set the wand down, then, at his side on the bed, splayed both hands out across her torso and let himself feel her skin, feel her body under his fingers. He ran his fingers around the curve of her, thrust forward towards him because of the way she was held with her arms under her, and closed his eyes for a moment. He'd thought he would never be able to take her held down like this, that too many nightmares would haunt the edges of his vision but now, with Draco pushing her out towards him he realized this was the only way this first time could have worked, the only way he would have ever believed, really believed, that his friend meant it.

His mouth wandered over her skin, tasting her, learning her. This is actually mine, he thought to himself. Ours. He learned the sounds she made when he mouthed her nipples, learned that if he licked her right at the base of her throat she would twist under him, learned if he grazed his teeth along her ribs she began to pant. He suspected she'd be begging if he hadn't told her not to speak.

That, he thought to himself, that I might want to hear.

He pulled down her skirt, wiggling it over her hips, sliding it down her legs, then tossing it to the floor. "Nice knickers," he said, running his finger around the lace at the top. "Black silk?" he arched a brow and eyed her with a mock frown. She was looking back with a pleading, desperate expression and he traced a finger lightly over that silk and she struggled within Draco's grip. "_Wet_ black silk," Theo corrected himself even as Draco laughed again.

"Not what I would have expected," Theo looked up at Draco, idly running his finger back and forth over her. "The knickers, I mean."

"She's an endless source of unexpected delights, our Hermione," the man smiled back, shifting her so he was using her own weight to help him hold her arms back, reaching his freed hand around to flick his fingers back and forth across one nipple.

"I see that," Theo began tugging the knickers down, then looked up at the sound of her whimpering and almost cooed, "You had something to add, dove?"

"Theo," she whispered hoarsely, then again, "Theo, please, Theo…"

"I begin to see," he returned to the task of pulling the knickers away, "why you like this so much. Seeing her reduced to inarticulate pleading, unable to stop you, – "

"And knowing it's your doing," Draco added.

"- that's not the worst thing in the world." Theo lowered himself down and began to explore the woman in even more detail, to learn more about what made her make what sounds. _This_ produced a high gasp while _that_ elicited more of a moan. He could study this subject forever; oh, he would never tire of learning more about this. A touch here, a kiss there and he read the responses, taught himself that she wanted more of this, less of that, hands here and not there. He tasted her, nuzzled her, felt her quiver beneath his hands and mouth and marveled that he'd ever feared he wouldn't be sure she wanted him if she were held down. She's a book, a novel he's reading - no, a poem - and every touch makes the meaning, makes her, more and more clear and that she wants him is so very, very plain.

But she was close, too close. "No," he said suddenly. "The first time I make you come I want to feel it from inside you." He wrestled out of his own clothes, lowered himself down on top of her, thrust into her; Draco released her arms and she wrapped them around him and he managed maybe three thrusts before she pulled at him, convulsed around him and then lay back, panting, watching him. He leaned forward onto his hands, bracing himself while his dark hair hung down into his eyes and he pumped into her, lost in a haze until, done, shocked and breathless, he rolled to the side and looked up at Draco. "Your turn?" he asked, hair still down in his face, and Draco laughed, shifted out from underneath her, threw his arm across her torso as he lay on one side next to her.

Theo reached his hand out and brushed some of Hermione's hair off her face. "You're amazing," he said simply. "Thank you."

She smiled at him then, a sated, languorous smile, and reached over to pull him towards her, erasing even the small space between them. "I love you, Theodore Nott," she whispered, "Thank _you_," and he buried his face in her, nestling into her even as Draco began trailing his own hands along her side and gently teasing her back into if not coherence than desire.

"_Your face_," Theo murmured against her skin, "_is honey to my mouth. Your body, pasture to mine eyes. The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs_."

"Not fair," she was starting to make tiny whimpering noises now as Draco pulled her relentlessly away from her heavy-lidded drowsiness. "I can't remember…" and then she arched under the blond's hands and Theo smiled lazily against her. "Theo," she gasped, "you're gloating."

"Me, gloat?" he reached a hand over and begin slowly circling his fingers around a breast, letting his thumb brush across the nipple. "But that would be mean."

"_Glittering eyelids_." If she were preening under their hands she was still determined to have the last word, struggling to remember the poem before she gave in wholly to their touch, "_my soul's desire_."

"Well done," Draco purred, "someone, I think, deserves a reward for being so very clever despite struggling with all these distractions." He flicked his fingers across her at the last word and she gasped again and writhed under his hand. "Say please, sweetheart."

"Please," she whispered, and, smiling at Theo across her body, Draco set to work rewarding her and if that rewarded him also, well, she didn't complain.

. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N**__ – Thank you all for reading, and reviewing, and following along on this story. A lot of people have asked if I'm going to get into the boys' relationship more; yes, but not yet. I don't have any kind of grand plan for this one, not like the other, heavily plotted ones, so I'm just letting it unfold as it goes.  
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_The poem Hermione recites in the library is 'Enthralled' by Alfred Bryan. "Teach me to hear mermaids singing" is from 'Go and Catch a Falling Star' by John Donne. The post-coital (and pre-coital) poem is '__Love and Sleep'__ by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Theo is not quoting exactly, nor is Hermione, but, in their defense, they are distracted._

_Thank you, especially, to all the people who took the time to review since I last posted: LadiePhoenix007, dulce de leche go, Jenny Felton, Kou Shun'u, pagyn, colao, Analena, Lilfifix3x3, love-them-all10, thefourteenth, Grovek26, MCannon5887, Cpetrienm (you are so so so nice!), my name is mommy, AmandaxxPlease, Honoria Granger, Mistress-Cinder, Ev'rdeen, ladymagna1100, xXMizz Alex VolturiXx, Artemisgodess, MDIlikewhoa._


	10. 9 - Family

"I know," Hermione said, "I'm not on the approved visitors list." No one has ever even tried to make the waiting area of the prison cheerful; there were stone walls, metal folding chairs, and an institutional trash can that overflowed with tissues and plastic wrappings of one sort or another. The guard, sitting behind chipped counter, held a clipboard in his hand and had made only the most cursory pretense that he was checking to see if she were allowed in. They both knew he'd let her in; they both knew he'd eavesdrop on whatever conversation she had with the Death Eater in question.

"I'm not worried," he said, "about you trying to spring the man, ma'am. Thank you, by the way, for the cookies."

"I'm glad you liked them," she smiled at the guard as she handed him her bag and wand; he poked idly in her bag, pretending to search for contraband but probably really looking for more baked goods, then handed both items back to her and led her to the grim room where the older man had already been dumped by an equally curious prison guard. They didn't get many visitors and the few that did show up were generally predicable and doing little more than going through the motions of visiting despised family members. A new visitor, and a celebrity no less, would keep the staff talking for days.

"Mr. Nott." Hermione sat in her chair, back straight, hands folded in her lap. The man glared at her. She'd gotten lucky; he was coherent today. She'd planned to come back as many times as she needed to in order to get a sane day and here he was, functional and alert on her very first visit.

"I don't know you," he narrowed his eyes at her.

"My name is Hermione Granger."

He snorted at that. The name he knew, then, if not the face. Well, she thought, at least there would be no time wasted establishing her bona fides.

"Potter's mudblood whore." The man spat on the floor and leered at her. Before he could go on, she spoke again.

"Technically, I think, I'm your son's mudblood whore." She smiled at him as though they were discussing the weather or how lovely the flowers were at this year's garden show. "I'm also a war heroine after that minor matter of my not insignificant contribution to your boss' failure and death. I assume, of course, that you remember that happened."

"So what? You're still a worthless…"

"I have," she continued as though he hadn't interrupted her, "the personal gratitude of much of the Wizengamot as well as the ear of the Minister of Magic - "

"Good for you, you…"

"- and if you ever upset your son again, I will use that influence to ensure that you receive the Dementor's Kiss."

That stopped him. He stared at her in silent shock for several minutes as she sat, unperturbed by the drawn out pause, until he said, "You can't do that."

"How much," she smiled at him, so very sweetly, "do you want to bet that I cannot do exactly that? Are you willing to bet your soul? Because, let me be very clear, the next time Theodore comes home upset after meeting with you, I will arrange to have you Kissed and I won't tell him, or ask his permission, or even ask what happened. I'll just do it." She stood, brushing creases out of her skirt, and turned towards the door.

"You stupid whore, he doesn't love you, you know," the man behind her hissed. "He might be fucking you, I wouldn't put that past him. Hell, I'd be impressed with the little pansy. But he'd never really sully himself with some filthy little Muggle spawn, not really, not for longer than it takes to have a good time."

She sighed and turned back to him. He was perched on the edge of his seat, leaning towards her. Prison had stripped him of whatever softness he'd ever had. His eyes were narrowed, squinty. It was not at all difficult to imagine this man beating a child. Just looking at him, seeing him stare at her, made her want to go home and take a hot shower, wash the feel of his eyes off of her.

She met that unpleasant, slimy gaze with an even stare of her own. "You really aren't very smart, are you? I can only assume Theo's mother was a quite a clever woman given how utterly idiotic you clearly are and how brilliant he is. Let me explain this to you again, and I'll use smaller words, if that's even possible. It doesn't matter whether Theo likes me, loves me, hates me, or is using me, not as far as you're concerned. Your interest in the matter is fairly simple: upset your son and lose your soul. And, I'll point out as a minor side note that abusing the person who's already told you she has the power and inclination to arrange loss of said soul? Not a good choice. Have a nice day, Mr. Nott."

The guards were gathered in the hall when she closed the door behind her, all apparently examining the wall for structural weaknesses. "Gentlemen," she tipped her head towards them. "Would you like me to arrange to have the bakery send up regular shipments of their cookies? I didn't want to presume to bring some today as I wasn't sure they'd been to your liking."

The man who'd checked her in held the door for her as she walked out. "That would be right thoughtful of you, Miss Granger. Thank you."

. . . . . . . . . .

"You've been up to something," Draco narrowed his eyes at Hermione as she poured herself a glass of wine. She'd come in having been 'at the bakery,' a place she'd apparently been all afternoon.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She took her wine and settled herself onto their couch, where she pulled a book out from behind a cushion with her free hand.

"You have that smug look you get when you're unusually pleased about something and baked goods don't tend to inspire you quite that much." He walked over and plucked the book from her hand and set it on the nearest table before squatting in front of her on the floor.

"Oh?" She took a sip from her glass and, when she was done, he took that away too and it joined the book. He shoved her forward a bit on the couch and slipped in behind her and she made a satisfied sound before she leaned back against his chest. While she was happy for him that he'd found something to do that pulled him out of himself, even if it seemed to be conquering the world via commerce, Malfoy Enterprises took a lot of time and she'd missed him, missed long, lazy afternoons curled up against him while he read to her or made sardonic comments about anything that crossed their paths.

Draco wrapped his arms around her, took one of her hands in his and began to trace the lines on her palm with his finger. "Yes, 'Oh'. Tell me before Theo gets home or we'll gang up on you."

"That's not fair," she said, closing her eyes, feeling his hair brush against her as he bent forward and kissed along the side of her face, gentle brushes of his lips against her skin.

"It's cute you think we play fair," he whispered into her ear and when she laughed, amused at the very notion of either of her two playing fair, he joined in.

When they stopped she sighed, and said, "I went to see his father."

"And?" Draco tenses behind her on the couch and his arms tightened around her. It's no small thing to have the woman you love tell you she went to visit an abusive sadist who'd kill her just for whatever idle amusement it might afford him.

"He called me a whore, I called him stupid. I thought it went well."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Well, I said if he ever upset Theo again I'd have him Kissed."

Draco's eyes widened and he started to laugh again. "Could you do that?"

She twisted to look at him, feigning confusion with a sparkle in her eyes. "Of course I could. I might have to do some kind of dreadful ribbon cutting ceremony for Shacklebolt in exchange, but half the Ministry would line up to watch the man's demise. He's not exactly anything but thoroughly awful; the only reason he wasn't Kissed the first time around was a vague hope he'd rehabilitate himself; it would be pretty simple to get a new trial, followed by a ruling that he's failed to do so."

"Went and pulled his file?" Draco rolled his eyes as he thought of the way this woman casually disregarded rules when she wanted something; he'd always thought of her as such an annoyingly virtuous swot when they were children. Funny how wrong he'd been; compared to her he'd been practically rule abiding. He wondered, idly, whether she'd pulled strings to get the file or whether she'd just slipped into the Ministry and taken it without asking. Not that he'd ask; she might tell him and sometimes ignorance was bliss.

"Yep. File pulled. It was thick." She hesitated. "I doubt Theo knows it all."

Draco was quite sure Theo was not fully informed about his parent; he suspected he was equally ignorant of some of his own father's crimes. Ignorance. It really was bliss, and it was a bliss within which he intended to stay safely ensconced. All he said was, "Have him Kissed, huh? Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"I'll do what I have to in order to protect either of you." Hermione shrugged in his arms.

"I know." Draco nuzzled down into her neck, breathing her in. "Me too."

"I know."

When Theo arrived home he found the two of them still on the couch, Hermione curled slightly onto one side, asleep; Draco dozed lightly behind her but woke up when the door opened.

"You two look sweet," Theo commented, sitting on the edge of the couch, brushing some of her hair off her face.

"Theo," Draco said in a warning tone, and he looked up, startled. "She went to see your father today."

Theo's hand paused over the woman's face, then returned to tucking some of her hair away. "Well, she came back alive so he must not have been in full form." He kept his voice guarded, deliberately light. "She's mentioned she planned to have a chat with him, and I suppose that explains why she sent me up with cookies for the guards last time. I don't suppose she shared what they talked about?"

"Bribing her way in," Draco nodded.

"She's spent too much time with us." Theo said, watching Hermione sleep.

Draco snorted at that. "She was a sneaky thing long before she took up with either of us; don't be too fooled by that noble streak." He paused before adding, "She threatened your father with the Kiss."

"She offered to kiss my father?" Theo looked up at Draco, wholly confused.

"No, the _Kiss_." Draco rolled his eyes. "The _Dementor's_ Kiss."

"Oh." There was a long bout of silence as Theo regarded the woman lying on the couch.

"She does stuff like that," Draco said, after a bit. "If you…"

"No, it's okay." Theo cut him off. "I mean, it's pushy and interfering and she really should have asked me but – "

"- but she did it because she – "

" – loves me, I know." He sighed and rubbed the side of his nose. "Do you ever get used to – "?

"No." Draco shook his head. "At least, not yet.

"Any advice?" Theo looked so lost, caught between gratitude anyone would place herself between him and the monster that was his father and anger that, damn it, his girlfriend was threatening to kill his father, that she hadn't even asked. And it wasn't some idle threat made in the heat of an argument; she meant it and she'd do it, especially now, after she'd met the man.

"Tell her no?" Draco said softly. "She would listen to you, you know. If you come home, upset, tell her to hold off."

"To think I find myself in the position of protecting that man," Theo muttered.

"Or," Draco continued, "You could just let her do it. He was terrible, even worse than Lucius, and I'd rip him apart with my own hands if I thought I could." Another long pause settled between them before Draco said, "Every time I see your back I want to knife that man."

"It wasn't that bad," Theo muttered.

"Liar. Don't fucking lie to me, Theo."

"Draco," Theo said, helpless in the face of the contained fury in the other man's expression.

"He hurt you," Draco said, in a low voice. "He hurt you over and over again and one of the reasons he hurt you was me and I want so very badly to kill him for that. Hermione isn't the only one who'll protect you, Theodore Nott, but, between us, believe it or not, she's the one with the influence to actually get this done because all I have is money. You can stop her, I warned you so you could stop her if you wanted to. But don't think for a moment I don't want him dead too because it fucking well was that bad."

"I know," Theo said, face shuttered. "I know it was."

. . . . . . . . .

"Hello," the voice calling out through the flat shocks Theo out of his book and pulls Draco out of his office.

"Mother," he said, crossing the room and taking her hand. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Do I need a reason to visit my son?" Her smile was sweetness itself, the doting mother. Draco wasn't fooled for a moment.

"Well, no, but you do generally have one, dearest." As he led her towards the couch he asked. "Can I fetch you anything?"

Narcissa, however, apparently was far interested in the other man in the room. "Theodore," she murmured as he rose to his feet and tipped his head in her direction. "Lovely to see you, as always. You're looking very smart."

"A glass of wine?" Draco asked again and Narcissa laughed.

"Only if Theo has been stocking your cellar. As much as I love you, darling, you never mastered the art of selecting a good vintage."

"He has been," Draco helped her to a seat and added, "You knew, of course, that Theo had moved in, joined our happy family, as it were."

"Of course," Narcissa turned to the dark haired man in question. "I wrote to Hermione, I assumed she'd share my little wish for your happiness."

"She did," Theo settled down next to the impeccably groomed matron and took her hand. "You must allow me to tell you how shockingly young you look. If I didn't know better I'd swear you've been practicing dark arts."

"Silly man, the dark arts are aging." Narcissa dimpled at him. "But no woman will refuse a young man who wants to make love to her. Do go on and praise my beauty at some length."

He kissed her fingertips and said, "Alas, if only I believed for a moment I could even hope to win you, lovely lady, I'd be at your door every hour with flowers and sweets. As it is, I shall simply have to worship your beauty from a safe distance lest I end up burned by your glory."

"I do hope," she pulled her hand from his and patted his cheek, "you don't speak to Hermione that way."

Theo smiled, "No, whenever I've treated the fair maiden to my gallantries she pouts and mentions her fondness for honesty."

Narcissa held her hand out and Draco slipped a glass into it. She sipped it then raised her eyebrows. "Very nice. I hardly need to ask which of you selected this bottle."

"Truly, mother, you wound me." Draco settled across from her.

"Nonsense, you are unwoundable," she snorted, a brisk little snort that dismissed his complaint. "I am sure you are wondering why I have stopped by."

"Indeed."

"I am," she paused and took another sip and studied her son as he watched her with impermeable patience. She knew, with some pride, that he'd sit and dally with her as long as she insisted, saying nothing of any real meaning, never suggesting she was interrupting his work, never asking why she'd descended upon them uninvited. He'd grown into a charmingly dangerous man; to think that all those years she'd worried about him as he'd huddled away from the world and now he was finally coming into his own. She credited… "I am worried about Hermione."

Theo startled and looked at her. She could almost here his thoughts: since when did Narcissa Malfoy care about anyone other than Draco? "As I'm sure you know, I think of her as almost a daughter. I was _assuming_ you planned to make her such, and in reasonably short order."

She frowned at Theo and could see him brace himself. "Do either of you have any idea of the complexities a wedding between all three of you will entail? It's an etiquette nightmare."

Theo blinked. Once, twice, a third time, all while Narcissa looked at him and sipped her wine.

Draco just drawled, "I think you're forgetting how Hermione doesn't care for crowds. I think you'll have to put away your dreams of masterfully pulling off the most complex event of the decade."

"There are still announcements, photographs… did you think you could just haul her, haul them both, off to some government office and…"

"Mother," Draco held up a hand. "I think you might be…"

"Because if you're telling me you just plan to take back up with Theodore and leave that girl out in the cold…"

"How do you even _know _about that?"

"Oh, please. I'm your mother." Narcissa huffed out, a remarkably unladylike sound. "I was pleased at the time, I'm pleased now. Anything but that Parkinson girl was what I thought then. Fortunately, she seems to have exited the stage, as it were, though, alas, not pursued by a bear."

"I could probably find a bear," Theo murmured. "If you'd like."

"You shouldn't tempt me," Narcissa smiled at him again.

"So… I just want to be clear here," Draco had tipped his head and was examining his mother carefully. "You're fine with Theo. You're fine with… all of us. You're only displeased with the possibility we might plan to, well…"

"Propriety, as understood by the masses, is not my god, Draco." She took another sip from her glass and set it down on the table nearest her. "Nor should it be yours. I am very fond of both Theodore and Hermione and, simply put, if a Malfoy does it, it is, perforce, the right thing to do."

"One of these days I will learn to stop underestimating you." Theo watched Draco as he gazed at his mother. He clearly adored her even though he thought of her as a snake, something beautiful and deadly, something he had to handle with great care.

"That would be nice, though I long ago stopped holding out any hope of such." She stood and both men rapidly rose to their own feet. "I'm afraid I cannot stay now that I've said my little piece, but it was lovely seeing you both; please give Hermione my love."

"She'll be sorry she missed you," Draco walked his mother back to their door.

"Oh." Narcissa stopped at the door and pulled a small envelope from her purse. "I have something for you, Theo." She patted him on the cheek again as he stood there, her little gift in his hand, then walked gracefully down the stairs, through the bookstore and away.

"What is it?" Draco asked, shutting the door behind her.

"I have no idea. Should I be afraid to look?"

"Well, it hasn't exploded or poisoned you yet, so you're probably safe to open it." Draco was obviously waiting so Theo opened the envelope and slid out a photograph. A dark haired woman was holding a laughing toddler on her hip, kissing his forehead; she looked out at the photographer, a warm smile on her face, then back at the little boy. Theo looked at it, then up at Draco. "It's…"

"Your mother. Your mother and you." Draco looked at the door as if Narcissa would still be standing there, explaining her gift, the little thing she'd handed off as if it were of no import at all even though it may well have been the main reason for her visit. Trust that woman to underline her approval of Theo by handing him something he would find precious right as she walked away.

"I don't have any, well, just snapshots," Theo said, staring at the image. "She died so long ago, and my father… all I've ever seen are the formal portraits, the ones with him in them. This is…" he trailed off.

"Well, it's settled. She likes you."

"What'd she give Hermione?"

"A book."

"Of course." Theo pauses. "Did she ever give Pansy anything?"

"Looks down her nose?" Draco sniggered.

"How does she even have this?" he was looking back the photo, at himself, at his mother kissing him.

Draco made a light coughing noise and Theo, looking up, paled. "It can't be true. They couldn't have…"

Draco reached a hand out and, after a short pause, Theo took it and they stood there, fingers interlaced, looking at the photograph, the approval, Narcissa Malfoy had left them.

. . . . .

**A/N - ** "Exits, pursued by a bear," is one of Shakespeare's most famous stage directions and, delightfully, comes from The Winter's Tale, home of another Hermione.

Thank you to all the lovely people who reviewed the last chapter (as well as to the person who informed me, at some length, that this fic ruined The Die and was just a cheap bodice ripper. Your thoughts are precious to me too.) Special, clothes tearing thanks to: thfourteenth, ladymagna1100, MDIlikewhoa, Grovek26, Rose Davis, cpetrienm. Analena, Guest (glad you liked it, sorry about the train embarrassment), Eternal-Glade, Honoria Granger, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, Elle Leigh, Ev'rdeen, Artemisgodess, batcat4eternity, dulce de leche go, GTH, LadiePhoenix007.


	11. 10 - The Lengths We Travel

Hermione looked up from her book and eyed the two men fondly. Mine, she thought. She'd certainly never expected to end up here, would have laughed at anyone who'd suggested Draco Malfoy would one day be her bulwark against fear of the dark, fear of sudden movements, fear of so many things. That sweet Theo had moved into their home so seamlessly seemed even less likely but there he was, fierce and damaged and loving and loved.

I have to tell Harry, she thought. This... secrecy... feels wrong. Ron would be upset, she conceded to herself, but Harry? People who return from the dead can bring a different perspective back with them. Well, Harry brought a different perspective, she corrected herself. I don't, she thought, have a large enough sample size to generalize. Harry would just see love and shrug. Ginny would want to know salacious details. Ron... Ron might be a bit harder.

She watched them, Draco and Theo, watched Theo look up from his own book to stare at Draco. How long, she wondered, until they admitted their adolescent games weren't games at all, that the reason this worked wasn't because the two of them were remarkably good at sharing – kind of an appalling way of putting it, really - but because they wanted each other too, loved each other and probably had since those days of being each other's only safe place in a world gone mad.

. . . . . . . . . .

One of the more peculiar things, Theo decided, about their strange little arrangement was how quickly it became neither strange nor peculiar but just life. If he and Draco were still dancing around their mutual insistence that they were friends, old friends, friends who had sex with the same woman, of course, and often at the same time, but nothing more, well, fear had made liars out of more men than just them.

And it seemed... greedy... to want more than just Hermione; Hermione was glorious. He'd wondered, before, if she only liked the games where she was held down and found himself relieved, though he'd never tell her that, that her preferences were far broader. He had become especially fond of watching her ride him, letting her do all the work while he lay back and admired her, and if she didn't beg him those times, well, the view more than made up for her lack of pleading.

It became unremarkable not just to grab her for a kiss as she walked by but also to release her from that embrace into Draco's arms. It became ordinary to hold her hand as she leaned over and whispered something - often something dirty - into another man's ear. He made the mistake of forgetting their arrangement was not quite normal. He made the mistake of forgetting other people would condemn one or more of them for it.

Of course, he'd also forgotten how vicious Draco could be, which might have been more of a mistake if he were Draco's enemy, however the man defined the term, and not his... friend? Flat mate? Co-boyfriend?

Because that's all they were; they were friends.

He remembered all those things, though, when they went out for ice cream. Peculiar, immoral, vicious: he remembered it all, along with how he would never escape the legacy of his father.

Sure, it was cold out, and wet, and dreary. It wasn't the sort of day that really inspired a trip for frozen treats but when Hermione threw first her dictionary across the room, and then her grammar, and began to cry before she began a long, mostly incomprehensible rant about adjectives being different in wizarding Anglo-Saxon and now she'd have to redo everything and she was so stupid, well, he and Draco exchanged a look and had her almost immediately bundled up, out the door and down the stairs.

"You need a break," Draco said when she stopped at the foot of the stairs, said in a tone that would have warned any wise person not to argue. The bookstore was dark; the only light came in through the plate glass up at the front and that light was not only dim due to the predictably overcast day but also obscured by the rows of bookshelves.

Hermione just shoved Draco in the darkness and said, shrilly, "It's not working. I have to do it all again. Months - months - of work all wasted because I am so fucking stupid."

"I hardly think you're stupid," Theo had said, standing at the base of the stairs, the unfinished wood as murky as everything else in the back of the shop. He held his hands out to placate her, but she slapped them aside.

"Worthless, then," she insisted. "Such a stupid, obvious, idiotic mistake." She'd wiped at her eyes and Theo began groping though his pockets feeling for a handkerchief. "It's because I'm a stupid, fucking mudblood. Any wizard scholar would have thought to check if there were language divergences but it never even occurred to me. Everything's ruined!"

"Don't," Draco said in a low tone, "use that word about yourself."

"Why not? It's true. Stupid, worthless, idiotic. Ugghh!"

Theo began to laugh. He didn't mean to but she was so absurdly hyperbolic he found himself sitting down on the bottom stair and looking up at her as she ranted. "Does this tirade really make you feel better?"

She glared at him, rage and frustration still filling her face before all those emotions drained away and she began to smile, and then to giggle, until she laughed while tears were still streaking down her cheeks. "I think... yes," she finally gasped out.

"Ice cream," Draco stated, handing her the handkerchief he'd produced with a snort. "You need ice cream."

"I need a better grammar," she squeezed out between huffs of still-hysterical laughter, "and a book tracking the differences between wizard and Muggle adjectival usage in the early Middle Ages."

"Well, I don't have either one of those so what you're getting is ice cream." And her face wiped, her tears dried, they finished shoving her out the door into the street.

She had her hand in Draco's at first as they walked along the road, and no one gave them a second look. Her relationship with the blond was so long established in their neighborhood it wasn't even worth noticing anymore. It helped that she'd set up shop in a fairly liberal neighborhood, surrounded by people who could feel smugly pleased with themselves for their acceptance of both a Muggle-born and a Death Eater.

It was at the ice cream parlor, where Hermione leaned across the table to take a lick from Theo's cone, a lick so clearly accompanied by eye contact, that someone stopped to really look at them, to look at the woman who, cuddled up against one man at their little table, was exchanging obviously affectionate glances with another.

The first person that actually said anything approached Hermione as she wound through the scattered tables towards the loo, picking her way around coats and scarves that sprawled on the tile floor. Theo couldn't hear what was said but he watched Hermione's body language shift from the relaxed, happy ease they'd finally teased her into after the adjective issue mess into angry stiffness. She shook her head and narrowed her eyes before shaking the woman's hand off her arm with a sharp twitch and continuing on her winding path.

"What was that all about?" Draco asked when she rejoined them.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm ready to go."

"Liar."

"No. I'm quite ready to go." Hermione started to reach under the table to grab her own coat, which had slipped to the floor, when Draco put a hand out and stopped her.

"What did she say?"

"She's just a busybody," Hermione said, trying to divert their attention from her confrontation. "Just a..."

"What. Did. She. Say." Theo had never heard Draco use that tone with Hermione, low and controlled but filled with rage and fear. He'd heard the tone enough earlier in their lives. Vicious, Theo thought to himself. Draco could be vicious when he felt cornered, when he was afraid someone was going to strip him of something he valued.

Hermione inhaled, watching him, and then said, "She was concerned you were taking advantage of me. I told her she didn't need to worry. That's all."

Draco looked at Theo and Theo started to rise but Draco shook his head. "I'll handle it," he said, and stood gracefully in a single, fluid movement and walked off through the ice cream parlor, past people all studiously not looking at him, off to the side of the woman who'd spoken to Hermione.

Left at the table, Theo looked at her helplessly. I'll never not be that man's son, he thought. I'll never be someone people don't automatically assume is untrustworthy, and I never even did anything. I'm no hero but why do I have to be the villain in every play? Hermione was eyeing his mouth and, just as he was about to ask her what she was looking at, she said, "You have a bit of ice cream on your lip, let me help you with that."

He froze as she leaned across their little table and into him, kissed him with casual thoroughness. "I love you, she whispered as she pulled away, her mouth still only centimeters from his face, "and you love me, and we make each other happy, and anyone who has a problem with the idea that love might not fit into their neat little boxes can go to hell."

Draco was still talking to that woman; all the color had drained from her cheeks and she was clutching some ugly tote bag with white knuckles. Theo was watching the interaction as Hermione shamelessly licked from his ice cream cone when some kid walked by and asked, clearly pleased with his own daring and sophistication, "Is she like a pet or a toy or something that you two share?"

Theo stood up, had his hands fisted in the kid's – the young man's - shirt, and pulled the brat up towards him, before he'd even finished his question.

"Great," Hermione muttered, "You dropped your ice cream cone, Theo. I wasn't done."

"I'm sorry," Theo said, his voice totally controlled even as he stood there, the boy - he thought he recognized him as having been several years behind him at Hogwarts but, even within Slytherin he hadn't known all the younger students - held up, standing, pulled up to his toes. "I must have misheard you because it seemed to me you might have insulted the lady and I'm quite, quite sure you aren't that stupid. Perhaps you would be so kind as to clarify what you meant?"

"I take it," Draco drawled, returning and settling back into his seat with his legs kicked out in front of him, "we are simply ignoring that Theo's not quite throttling that person?"

"Uh..." the younger man in question gasped.

"I'm much more concerned that he dropped his cone. I wasn't done with it." Hermione pouted, an expression Draco recognized as wholly feigned. "What did you tell that woman?"

"I merely asked whether she worked for the company emblazoned on that unfortunate tote bag, and when she confirmed that, yes, she did, I informed her that Malfoy Enterprises owned that company and unless you had a written apology by tomorrow she'd find herself out of a job." He poked at the dropped ice cream cone with the tip of his shoe. "Pity, that."

"I know. Mint chocolate chip, too." Hermione leaned up against him. "It's a tragedy."

Draco looked back at the young man, still held up by Theo. "Mind telling me what the miscreant we are ignoring did?"

"You might kill him," Theo said, "as he implied our lovely Hermione was an object we passed back and forth between us. I believe the word he used was 'pet'." At that last word Theo tightened his grip on the man's collar and squeezed another gasp out of him.

"Indeed," Draco frowned down at the ice cream on the floor again. "Well, it looks like Theo has that issue under control. Would you like me to get you another cone, love?"

"If you wouldn't mind," Hermione dimpled at Draco who obediently rose and, with a quick kiss of her hand, set off towards the counter and Theo sighed.

"Have I mentioned before that you two are absolutely terrifying?"

Hermione glanced up to the counter where Draco seemed to be not just ordering a replacement cone but exchanging some kind of words with the owner. "I'm not the one on the verge of physically damaging that idiot you're holding so it seems a little unfair to call me the terrifying one." She eyed the young man with some displeasure. "He seems too stupid too have figured out what you want him to do, Theo. You might need to give him hints. "

"I simply want him to clarify what he meant," the dark haired man tightened his grip though his tone remained absolutely level, "lest I lose my temper due to a misunderstanding."

"I didn't mean it," the man gasped, finally. "I just meant, uh, she's very beautiful and you're, uh, very lucky."

Draco handed Hermione another cone as Theo released his captive, who promptly scuttled away, "The cone was on the house, by the way, along with a mostly sincere apology for the intolerance of the other patrons. The owner is truly distraught we might have been made to feel unwelcome, or, at least is worried I might take some kind of action against him." He eyed the back of Theo's little problem as he slipped out the front door. "I take it that he insulted you, love, and not us?"

"What makes you think that?" Theo took the cone from Hermione and licked at it casually before holding it back out to her.

"Because she has a 'defending her people' streak that's impulsive and downright scary and that boy is still in one piece."

"I'm not scary," Hermione muttered around a mouthful of ice cream at which Theo snorted.

"Terrifying," was all he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione finished the note and sent it off.

"Draco," she said, and her tone made him look up. "I'm owling Harry. I'm sure he'll tell Ron. Just... be prepared."

"Why?" He tensed slightly and paused a moment before he went back to pretending to be absorbed in the Muggle paper he was reading at the table.

"How long do you think it will take the gossips to spread news of us after the ice cream parlor incident? Incidents."

"Maybe we should have been more discreet," he admitted. Gossip flew more quickly than owls and he had a horrible suspicion Harry Potter already knew what had happened or at least some version of it.

"No," Hermione shook her head. "A pox on discretion. We shouldn't have to hide. If people don't like it they can look away. But I don't want Harry to hear from someone spreading tales; he should hear it from me."

"Theo, though," Draco said and she nodded with a sigh.

"I know, but we can't just wrap him up in cotton wool forever."

"Unfortunately."

"You can protect people too much, you know," Hermione said.

"Maybe." Draco set the paper down and glanced up at her. "Are you owling Ron too?"

She bit her lip and looked away. "I thought I'd let Harry tell him. That'll let him take the first wave of horror and by the time Ron yells at me he'll be a little more restrained."

"Coward," but Draco was smiling as he said it.

"Discretion the better part of valor and all that." She stretched at her seat and then stood up. Theo was out, her unpleasant chore of the morning was over, and now…

"Uh huh. What happened to the pox?" Draco snorted with a grin, interrupting her thoughts.

"Are you trying to rile me?" Hermione asked.

"Maybe."

She smirked at him as she crossed the room and leaned over his seat. "I don't suppose you'd like to - "

"Oh, hell yes."

And they did, at some length, and when Theo got home, when he spied the tell tale marks on Hermione's wrists, he rolled his eyes and said, "Have a good time while I was out, kids?"

"Adequate," Hermione said, without pulling her face out of her book or so much as shifting on the couch where she sat.

"Adequate?" Draco growled. "I'll show you 'adequate' you little wench."

"Promises, promises," she said.

"Are you trying to rile me," he smirked as Theo looked from one of them to the other and sighed.

"You two are going to be the death of me."

"There are worse ways to die," Hermione set her book down and stretched again.

"Round two?" Draco asked.

"If you're up for it."

He was.

. . . . . . . . . .

When they climbed the stairs to the flat, bag of croissants in Draco's hand, they heard the screaming.

"He's bloody well passing you out to other Death Eaters now? Have you lost your mind?"

"Ah," Draco murmured. "Ron would appear to have dropped by for a visit."

"Do we go in?" Theo asked.

Draco gave him a contemptuous look. "We eavesdrop."

Hermione has also raised her voice. "Don't be an arse, Ron. And don't come over to my flat to bloody well insult me."

"Then explain Theodore Nott to me!"

"Last time I checked I wasn't fifteen and you weren't my father and therefore I don't actually have even the vaguest need to explain my sex life to you."

"Are you actually fucking that bastard? Wasn't one Death Eater enough for you? Was it two for the price of one week on evil lunatics down at Tesco or something?"

Draco sniggered and Theo shot him a narrowed eyed glare.

"Theo," Hermione's voice was tight and controlled, "is not a Death Eater, was not a Death Eater, but I don't really bloody care whether he was or not because he is mine, my friend, my lover, mine. And it is not your concern."

"Hermione," Ron's voice got lower, "I tried to understand about Draco Malfoy, really I did. I mean, yes, he's an evil git and I really don't like him but he makes you happy and, I thought, I'll put up with anyone who makes Hermione happy. I don't get it but whatever. But _two_ of them? That's bloody well abnormal."

"I got a knock on the door at eleven from a woman telling me I wasn't actually losing my mind but was instead a witch. Of course, she neglected to point out I was a despised minority; guess that little detail slipped her mind. Oops. Then I spent the next seven years battling a madman, then seven more years living behind a wall of fear and books. _None_ of that was 'normal', Ron. I'm not even sure what 'normal' means. Why on earth would you think I'd suddenly start having a normal life now?"

"Normal means one husband and babies and… it doesn't mean shacking up with two men who are just _using _you, Hermione. You talk about being part of a minority? These are the very people who think you're scum –"

"Wrong," she yelled. Screamed. Theo's never heard her scream in rage at someone before. She has remarkable vocal projection. "These are the people who don't care _at all_ where I came from."

"You don't know that! Can't know that. They're Slytherins. They lie for _sport_."

"What's bothering you, Ron? That they might still think of me as a mudblood? Their fucking house affiliation at a school we left years ago? That there are two of them? What's the core issue here that has your fucking panties in a fucking twist?"

The teakettle started to whistle and, as if she hadn't just been screeching, Hermione asked in a nearly normal tone of voice, "Sugar?"

"Yes, please," Ron muttered, barely audible, and they were silent for a while.

"Could you explain it to me," the man said after a bit. "Help me understand. I love you, Hermione; I don't want you hurt. From my perspective it looks like Malfoy lured you in and is now sharing you with his buddies, like a… toy… he's passing around."

Theo stiffened and Draco reached out a hand, touched his arm. "I'm going to kill him," the dark haired man muttered, but Draco shook his head. "Can't. They're friends."

"I love him," Hermione was saying. "I love both of them."

"That's not how it works," Ron sounded frustrated. "You love _one_ person. Marry _one_ person."

"Which of your children do you love?"

"Huh? All of them?"

"Well, that's more than one person. Look," she sounded tired. "I'm not going to convince you our little triad is anything other than bizarre. I get that. But could you please just accept that it _works_ for me, that it works for all of us. That I'm not some weak-minded puppet Draco is passing around? Gods, Ron, I had to practically beg Theo so much as to let me kiss him. Trust me, the man is so careful not to take advantage of me you'd think I'd spent the last ten years in a convent and my father was standing behind him." There was a pause and Draco could hear the clink of china as they drank their tea, as, presumably, Ron swallowed all the things he wanted to say.

"He makes me feel safe," Hermione finally said. "He makes me feel safe in an unsafe world, they both do. And, I love you Ron, I do. But I'm not giving that up."

"I wish I could make you feel safe," the man said, sounding defeated.

"I wish I could do it for you." She sighed. "I really do. But I can't. You can't."

"I know."

Theo reached out and slipped his hand into Draco's. Hermione and Ron both sounded so sad, so lost. It was easy to forget just how much they'd endured in that war, just how much they'd endured at Draco Malfoy's hands, at the hands of his family, his side.

"I'm glad, you know, that Lavender can." Hermione was still talking. "I wasn't her biggest fan when we were kids – "

"Some yellow birds made me very clear on that." They laughed, clearly some inside joke. Theo made a questioning face at Draco who shrugged, his face the careful blank mask he put on when he was resolutely not being jealous.

" – but, if I were religious – which I'm not - I'd be thanking the gods every day she's there with you, for you. I can't, I just… can't. But I'm so grateful she can." Hermione stood up, pushing her chair back and slightly raising her voice. "The boys should be home soon. Do you want to stay and be civil or slip out before you have to face them?"

'Caught,' Draco thought, and opened the door. "Hey, love, we got the… Oh. Hi Ron. Good to see you. How're the kids?"

Theo slipped in behind him, silent and so obviously tense even Ron noticed it. "Ron, you know Theodore Nott," Hermione said, crossing to stand next to the dark haired man.

"Kids are good," Ron said, rising as well and walking over to shake Draco's hand, the tight smile of being courteous to a friend's despised partner on his face. After a slight pause he stuck his hand out towards Theo as well. "I don't think we knew each other at school, but any friend of Hermione's a friend of mine."

Theo took the proffered hand, and the vast social dishonesty that accompanied it, and said, "Nice to meet you. Maybe sometime we can have you and Lavender over, take these children Draco mentioned to the ice cream shop down the street."

"The one you threatened to close down?" Ron looked over at Draco who shrugged. 

"I didn't technically threaten to close them down. I merely pointed out that their customers were harassing Hermione and I would hate to have to bring legal action. They do have excellent sundaes and, I'm sure, a strong motivation to ensure anyone we bring there has a good experience."

"We'll have to do that." He looked at Hermione. "I'll have Lav owl you to find a good date?" Hermione smiled at him and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "Love you, 'Mione," he whispered into her hair. "You need anything, need a place to go, anything at all, you're always welcome at our place, you know that, right?"

"I do," she stepped back and Ron moved towards the door. He stopped when his hand was on the knob and, looking back at Draco said, "Thanks for taking care of that thing at that ice cream shop."

"You can trust me," Draco said and Ron breathed out a sharp huff.

"Things I never thought I'd hear, or do. And I don't, not really."

"Well," Draco shrugged, "you can trust me to take care of Hermione. And you can trust her to murder me in my sleep if she thinks I deserve it."

Ron smiled at that. "I'll have Lav set that date up," was all he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N – **__Thank you, as always, for following along on this meandering fic. _

_Just a reminder that it keeps my scattered brain on track if you make birthday drabble requests via PM and ahead of time. _

_Again, as always, I'd like to acknowledge the people who take the time to review. Julie B (I'm so glad you like it. Of all the ones I'm writing right now this one is my 'comfort fic' where the people are genuinely nice and caring instead of manipulative and vicious), lets make a scene, Jenny Felton (strong women are where it's at), pianomouse, MDIlikewhoa, littlexmissxmcrx, ladymagna1100, itsamia71, Grovek26, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, Gunnhildde, my name is mommy, Honoria Granger, moriah, Ev'rdeen aka 'The Nag Who Gets Things Done', Artemisgodess, escape7437562533, LadiePhoenix007, thfourteenth, AmandaxxPlease, misstracicakes, Analena, GTH._


	12. 11 - Was the Morning

When Theo got back from his morning walk Draco was already tucked away into his office; it must be, Theo thought, an important day in the world of commerce. Hermione was still lying in bed, mostly asleep of course, wearing one of his old Quidditch t-shirts. She seemed to perpetually loot both of their laundry for old shirts and he couldn't bring himself to object, especially looking down at her now. "Is your goal with those shirts to remind us both that you're ours?" he asked fondly, running a finger along the line of her brow and then down her jaw.

She batted his hand away and murmured, "I'm my own. Come back to bed, Theo. It's cold."

"Lazy," he teased. "Or insatiable. And ours."

"Lazy," she propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him in the dim room. "I'm not really in the mood, though I suppose I could be convinced. I just want to feel your skin against mine."

He laughed at her, all sleepy-eyed and tousled and demanding, but was already stripping down to join her, pulling off his shoes, shedding the clothes that still carried the chill of the early morning in their fibers. When he sat on the edge of their bed to pull off his socks she sat up and looked at his back.

He remembered that first time she'd seen him, when she'd seen the whole history he preferred to hide written out on his skin. I'm like one of her parchments, he thought, and she looks at me and translates all those years into stories in her head. Now she was tracing her fingers over the lines, visible even in this light, and he sat and let her. "Why?" she whispered. "I just don't understand how anyone could do this."

When she placed her thumb over the burn on his shoulder he sighed and said, "Well, that one was to remind me that boys were not an acceptable choice. Others, well, they were all variations on how I wasn't what he wanted. Not aggressive enough, not vicious enough. A failure in every way, then and now."

She didn't say anything more, then, just kissed the scar, began to slowly kiss each of the lines and marks that were printed on him. He sat, just sat and let her try to soften that history, to give himself a new memory to layer over the old ones. Wouldn't that be something, he thought, for his past to be written in watercolors rather than indelible ink?

"I read somewhere," she was saying, "that when predators are caged in zoos they pace in their cages, back and forth, trapped by the bars." She rested her cheek against his skin and reached her arms around him. "Then, if they're freed into a large, natural enclosure they'll continue, sometimes, to just walk the boundaries of their older prison."

"What are you saying?" he asked, stiffly.

"Nothing," she was pulling him back down into the bed, twisting him and tugging him to bring him off the edge and into her arms. "Just that I hate to think of anyone, much less some kind of glorious apex predator, trapped by bars that only exist in their minds."

"Glorious predator, huh?" he whispered, head down, now, against her neck.

"I'm talking about creatures like tigers," she murmured and he smiled.

"Of course you are, dove." Theo ran his hand under his shirt, feeling her stomach. "Of course you are."

"Things change," she curled into him, wrapping her legs through his. "We've both changed." She sighed against him as she nestled herself more thoroughly against him and he let her lazy warmth soak into him and lay in silence for a while.

"They do," he finally said. "We do. I certainly never thought, princess, that I'd be in a bed with you wearing my shirt and - " he glanced down, tugged on the item of clothing he was eyeing, " - green satin knickers."

"You have something against green?" she pressed up against his hand, squirmed a bit, and he laughed again.

"It's more that I would have thought you'd be in red and gold, little lion. And I thought you weren't in the mood."

"I've been out of school for a while," she looked up at him. "And you're lovely and smell good and moods change."

"Which is, of course, why you're wearing a Slytherin alumni t-shirt and knickers in my old house color?" He paused. "What do I smell like, anyway?"

"You smell like morning and darkness and salt and the night. And love, I suppose." She looked up at him from under her lashes, lying there in the rumpled sheets and he felt a smile begin to quirk upward.

"Morning and darkness," he murmured. "You trap me, dove, with words. You lure me in with bits of fabric and then capture me with language. How can I resist you, little green-clad siren?"

She licked her lips and looked charmingly innocent. "It's just a comfortable shirt; do you want me to stop raiding your drawers?"

"No," he pulled the word out and then found himself beginning to purr as if he were the lion he called her as she wriggled down the bed, tugged off the drawers he was wearing and began what he supposed could be described as a bit of a raid.

When the door of the bedroom opened and Draco walked in, looking for who knew what, Theo had his hands wrapped in the curls of the woman who , still wearing his clothes, his colors, was between his legs using the same lips and tongue she'd been pressing to his scars in some other lifetime to erase memories, to make of him a palimpsest so she could write whatever she wanted into him, onto him. Her mood had, indeed, changed.

Theo opened his eyes, looked at his blond whatever-the-hell-he-was, and then gasped as Hermione did something glorious with that tongue and closed his eyes again.

"Nice knickers," Draco drawled while he searched for something in a drawer. "New?"

Hermione stopped to say, "Yes. You like them?" at which point Theo opened his eyes again. "Are you seriously interrupting her? What the fuck did I ever do to you to deserve tha..."

Hermione distracted him from complaining further to the sound of Draco's low laugh, followed by his, "Very much, though I'd like them even more if they were on the floor."

Hermione raised her head again and Theo groaned. "I give up," he glared at Draco. "You clearly hate me." But Hermione was shimmying out of the oh-so-distracting knickers and tossing them at Draco, who had to lunge to grab them from the air, and then shifting herself to Theo's side, pulling him on top of her.

"How," Hermione said with a grin at the blond, "is that?

"Better," Theo said, lowering himself down, thrusting into her with a relieved gasp after the slew of Draco-driven interruptions, "given you apparently insist on talking to that loathsome, distracting git."

"What can I say," Draco grinning back at her, at both of them. "The woman loves me even if she can barely throw." He frowned at the knickers still in his hand and then sighed. "But, as much as I'd love to stay and play, one of us has to earn a living."

Both of the people on the bed snorted at that and Hermione grabbed a pillow to throw in his general direction. That she missed made Draco laugh before he left the room with an exaggerated bow from the door.

When they were done, when Hermione had gasped out his name and clenched around him, when he'd remembered, again, what grace was, that there was forgiveness in this world, that life was not just a solitary walk through darkness and a network of scars he couldn't forget, when he lay again next to her, his fingers twisting the fabric of that faded shirt she'd never taken off, Theo murmured, "_I love you, let me count the ways, height, depth, breadth_."

"_To the level of every day's most quiet need_," she twisted on the bed so her sweat-soaked body faced him and reached out to pull him towards her, tucked a foot around his leg.

'Why," he asked and she shifted against him and murmured a questioning sound. "Why do you love me? Why… why let me in like this? Why not just…"

"Because I do," she said, twisting back so she was looking at him, reaching up to brush that dark hair out of his eyes, then smiling as it fell right back into place. "You're like a little bit of magic. '_You are the one I am lit for.'_"

"_I am burning,"_ he looked at her, those dark, haunted eyes. "But that doesn't explain why."

"Maybe there isn't a why." She rolled back off her hip and sighed, lying her back and looking up at the ceiling. "You were just there, like the final piece of a puzzle we didn't realize was missing until you slipped into place. Maybe without you we aren't whole, maybe we need your deep calm. Maybe I do. You're a darkness that comforts rather than frightens, Theodore. I feel, sometimes, like you can absorb any amount of anything I throw at you. You're endless and quiet and calm and peace. Maybe… maybe that's not fair to you."

He slipped his arm over her, feeling the lines of her ribs under his fingers. She was still too thin, after all these years. Still so frail. "I think I can, love. I think I will, for as long as you'll let me. And, all's fair, you know that."

"We both love you, you know," she said, then, so very softly. "Don't let the bars that aren't there any longer constrain you. Don't hide."

"Are you always so generous," he teased, a lilt hiding the hitch in his words. "So eager to only have half my heart?"

"I already only have half," she said, seriously. "You just aren't admitting it. And love, it isn't something that can be halved like pie, you know."

He nodded but didn't say anything and she didn't press any further. If she can push me, he thought, maybe now is the time to talk to her about… "Hermione," he said, watching her face. "Draco told me you went to visit my father."

She pulled away from him, just a little, he probably wouldn't have noticed if they weren't so entwined, if he weren't so focused on her.

"Please don't," he said.

"He deserves it, and more, for everything he's done to you," she muttered. "He deserves to suffer. I want him to suffer."

Theo sighed and pulled her up against him, held onto her as tightly as he could. "I know," he whispered. "But… I don't want to be him. I can't be him. If you… if I take some kind of revenge just because… Hermione, I can't be him. Don't make me." He was shaking now, the endless fears back in his veins. "Let me keep the few clean things I have. I don't hurt people. Not even him."

"Okay," she finally said, her words muffled against his chest. "Okay."

"Thank you," he said and they clung for a bit, him shaking. Finally Theo quipped into the silence, "Did he actually claim what he's doing is 'earning a living'?" Hermione rolled her eyes. Draco's pretense that his work was any kind of a conventional job was a fiction they generally respected but to pretend the money he made was anything more than markers in some kind of game he was playing was just silly.

"You were supposed to be snuggling me when you got distracted," she said, pushing away her worries. "Forget about Draco and his absurdities and your monstrous father and get back to that."

"You put my cock in your mouth and then you complain I was distracted?" Theo snorted and buried his face into her hair. "If you really expected me to stay focused in those circumstances I think your standards are too high."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N**__ – Thank you, again, for reading this very slow, so very slow, story. This chapter was one of the ones that didn't exactly want to come out of my brain._

_Thank you so much everyone who took the time to follow or favorite or review since I last posted. I've tried to respond to all the reviews personally but the holidays have done their thing and if I missed you I am very sorry._

_you are the one / i am lit for. / Come with your rod / that twists / and is a serpent. / i am the bush. / i am burning / i am not consumed._

_~ To a Dark Moses by Lucille Clifton_

_How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. / I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight / For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. / I love thee to the level of everyday's / Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. _

_~ Sonnets from the Porteguest by Elizabeth Barrett Browning_


	13. 12 - Proud Man

Draco woke screaming sometime in the darkness. Hermione had her arms around him at once, holding on tightly, pulling him back to himself. Theo lit the room and looked past Hermione at Draco, worried and horrified to see the man doubled over himself, fighting to regain composure. It was one thing to know, in the abstract, that the other man was also plagued by nighttime terrors, quite another to see it, to be so helpless before it.

"What was it?" he asked hoarsely.

Still bent over Draco muttered, "I was taking the Mark again."

No wonder, Theo thought, he'd woken in utter fear.

"The worst part wasn't the pain," Draco went on, "though, I assure you, getting it hurt like a sonofabitch. It was that I felt excited, proud even. I was going to be _important_. I was _special_." He laughed, a bitter sound. "I was so fucking stupid."

"You weren't," Hermione insisted.

"I should have fucking well known," he turned on her, self-loathing etched across his face as surely as the symbol he hated was etched onto his arm. "I should have known," he said again, helplessly.

"Bullshite." She shook him, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes on his. "You were a kid, just a kid. Of course you wanted to feel important, to be special. You were set up by people you trusted, people you loved, to think being a… a Death Eater was something to be proud of. Your father'd been sent to prison; of course you wanted some kind of revenge. You can't blame yourself. You couldn't have – "

"You did. You knew," he said, turning his face away from her again, looking down off the bed, down to the floor. "You knew that man was a lunatic. You wouldn't have felt _special_ because he burned his fucking symbol into your arm. You wouldn't have held your arm out _willingly_ so he could…"

"Stop," she jerked him back around to look at her, held his face there with her hand. "Stop it. So you weren't a bloody saint at sixteen? You didn't have all the answers? You made some mistakes because you wanted to be special? Because you didn't really understand the stakes until it was too late to back out? Well so did I. If you think for one minute I didn't love getting to be important as 'Harry Potter's friend,' getting to be special by doing secret things then you're giving me a lot of credit where none is due. It was great, really great, to be special right up until the time when it became terrifying and awful."

"Yeah," he whispered. "I know it was great. But, don't you understand, that's what I can't forgive myself for, that I _liked_ it. I should have…"

"No," Theo interrupted him, frustrated and worried. "You figured it out, you knew by the time we were… you knew. You can't blame yourself for believing what you were told, over and over again, what everyone around you thought."

"Most everyone does," Draco said, his face still held by Hermione, his eyes closed against both of them. "Everyone blames me, blames both of us, Theo. You know that. Death Eaters' sons, untrustworthy, dangerous. Scum. People think we're scum and sometimes I think they're right."

"Yeah?" Hermione said as she awkwardly climbed over him and shoved him to the center so he was between her and Theo. "Fuck them."

"I wish you wouldn't," he quipped, head down. "I don't think we can fit anyone else in the bed."

"Funny man." She nudged him over towards Theo, over towards making more room for her on the edge of the mattress and he obediently shifted, though not enough.

Theo watched them, watched her push at Draco, finally reached out and guided the shaking man closer to him, closer to the center of the mattress so Hermione wouldn't be balanced on the edge, one foot bracing herself against the floor. She slid back over so she was pressed up against him, leaning into him as though she could physically hold up his shaky emotions with her body.

"Draco, you have to let that go, all of that," Theo whispered, watching the man huddle next to him. "No one who matters blames you for what you had to do in school. You aren't a – "

"What do you know," Draco turned on Theo. "No one burned a fucking brand on your arm!"

Theo pushed his lips together and clenched his jaw before saying, "Shall I apologize for not having as dreadful an experience as you did? My salvation in that certainly wasn't because I was better than you were, or smarter or… or anything. It was only because my father didn't think I had any value, and you know it. If he'd thought giving me over would have earned him a drop of favor he would have had me on my knees at that monster's feet, never mind that I was a worthless bloody poof."

"You aren't," Hermione said quietly.

"Am," Theo turned to her.

"Aren't worthless, I mean," she corrected him. "And I don't care for your other word choice either."

"That's rich, coming from a woman who has no problem referring to herself as a mudblood whenever she gets upset."

"Theo," Draco snapped, glaring at the other man. "I love you dearly but do NOT – "

"It's what I am," Hermione interrupted him. "Ask anyone in our lovely society. Oh, they may cringe a bit at the word choice but they won't deny it. I'm not supposed to be as good as the rest of you; hell, it's carved on my fucking arm in case I might forget my status." She grabbed onto Draco as though to reassure him, though now she was probably more using him to steady herself as she stared at Theo across the bed.

'Yeah?" Theo looked back at her. "Well, it's what I am. I guess I should be grateful it never occurred to my father to label me the way Bella labeled you."

"Stop it, you two." Draco bent down over again.

"He didn't label you," Hermione snapped back, her volume rising, "Oh no, he just filled you with self-loathing and so much fear you're practically paralyzed, can't even accept love when people throw it at your feet and beg you to take it."

"Are you talking to me about fear? Really?" Theo glared at her across Draco. "When was your last nightmare, 'Mione? Still seeing visions of Draco's auntie in your dreams?"

"Yes," Hermione hissed. "And hearing her voice too. But at least I _remember_ my nightmares which is more than you can say. You can't even acknowledge what you're so bloody afraid of but you're perfectly happy to hate yourself."

"What the _fuck_ are you two doing?" Draco interrupted them both. "What the fuck?"

"She's being a bitch," Theo said in his coolest, most dismissive tone, eyes narrowed and fixed on the woman who was almost spitting at him. "And I'll use whatever words I want, Hermione. Poof. Faggot. Pansy. Queer. Shall I go on? I can assure you, whatever my father's myriad flaws were, he had an impressive vocabulary when it came to abuse and therefore I do as well."

"Is 'bitch' really the best you can do, then?" she snarled. "I mean, what with that oh-so-impressive vocabulary I'd expect a little better."

"Do you really want me to open up those floodgates, Hermione?" Theo still sounded totally unconcerned and Draco was watching him now, face slowly shifting from his own terrors to worry; Draco knew, of course, that cold anger was the most dangerous. "Perhaps you'd prefer termagant? Shrew? I've always rather liked 'fishwife'; it's got both class and gender-based insults wrapped up into one, short word. But then maybe I should go more traditionally vulgar and – "

"You need to stop now," Draco said, very quietly, "before you say something you won't be able to take back."

"I'm just trying to please the lady," Theo eyed the glaring woman and felt his chest tighten at the way water was starting to shimmer in the corners of her eyes but just kept going anyway. "She seems to feel she has the right to control my verbiage and I wanted to get a good sense of what words I am allowed to use."

Hermione took a deep breath and then wrapped her arms around Draco and said, with slow deliberation, "You do not get to talk about yourself that way, Theo. I _do not care_ what you are but you do not get to reduce yourself to a slur just because your nightmare of a father did." She started to cry, then, and Theo watched in horror as Draco turned, pulled all the way out of his own nightmare shakiness by his need to comfort the woman next to him, comfort she needed because of their fight. "I love you, Theodore Nott, even if I'm a shrew and a," she hiccupped and closed her eyes, pushing out more salted drops that were like acid, burning him. "Even if I'm a harpy, a scold, a nag – whatever word you want to use, I love you and I cannot bear to hear you talk about yourself that way. I am begging you – begging you – not to do it."

"I'm sorry," he whispered; he couldn't make her cry. If he hurt her feelings, if he made her cry… "Gods, Hermione, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. I just… I'm an arsehole. I'm sorry."

"Only you two," Draco muttered, "would start fighting about language in the middle of the night."

"I'm sorry," Hermione ground the heel of one hand across her eyes and hiccupped again. "I'm such a bitch, he's right. Draco, I'm so sorry." There was a long pause as she and Theo looked at one another, then she said, "So, about that nightmare, Draco. How're you doing with that?"

"We're a pair of right shites," Theo mumbled, "arguing like this when you're the one who's…"

"It's okay," Draco muttered. "You two did kind of distract me. Hard to wallow when you're both busy using your words to attack one another." They all sat then, in silence, as Hermione and Draco tucked into one another, the man slowly regaining his composure as Theo sat, uncomfortable and awkward, feeling like he should leave.

"You aren't scum," Hermione said at last. "Neither of you. You're brilliant and caring and… Draco," she pushed him away a bit and looked at him. "You did the best you could, better than anyone could have asked. You kept your soul in a world that first wanted you to sell it off to that madman, then didn't believe you hadn't. Wounded, maybe, but still yours."

She reached a hand across the man to Theo who took it, his fingers tentative against hers. "You too."

"You too," Theo said. "You too, love."

"No slurs?" she said, watching him and he nodded.

"For you either." He held onto her fingers for a long moment then added, "It's hard, Hermione. Letting go enough to love you was hard, and you're socially acceptable." She made a rather rude noise and he amended, "_more_ socially acceptable."

"We love you," she whispered and his hand clenched around her fingers.

"I know," he closed his eyes and then opened them to look at the other two people in the bed.

Draco was trailing a finger along Hermione's collarbone then up along the chain that held the world he'd given her, the pendent she almost never took off. Theo watched them and Draco looked back at him, caught his eye and smiled, a quiet, comfortable smile that might have never even met the smirk the man usually sported. "I sometimes look at her, you know, and wonder how this happened, how anyone as brilliant and clever as this woman is could have ended up loving me. You too, of course. We aren't the easiest people to love, I suspect. All nightmares and neurosis."

"This fishwife?" Hermione said, and Theo flushed until he saw the rueful smile she wore, until he heard the apology still lingering under the word.

"Mmm," Draco nuzzled her. "I prefer bossy, I think. And maybe a tad idealistic."

Hermione took his hand and pulled it to her mouth, kissed it. "Couldn't be I adore you because you're wonderful, silly man," she murmured.

"Since I'm not," he said very seriously, "I don't think that's it."

"Are," she said, closing her eyes.

"Only to you," he said softly, "only to you."

Eyes still closed she shook her head, a small movement. "Theo agrees with me. Your mother."

"Both biased," Draco shifted so he could pull her tighter to him. "You're a gift, you know. My ongoing proof that the universe doesn't actually dole out punishments and rewards fairly."

"Love isn't a balance sheet," she murmured. "I wish…" but she trailed off and both men looked at her.

"What, dove," Theo asked at last when it was clear she wasn't going to continue.

"I wish…" But she stopped, sighed and then shook her head and, freeing herself from Draco, lay back down, her head on her arm and looked up at the two men, sitting up against one another and both looking back down at her. "it's really not my concern."

"Tell," Draco said. "You owe me after having a fight with Theo when you should have been comforting me."

"So Sytherin of you," she smiled, though the expression might have been a little sad. "So manipulative, always." He slipped his fingers through her hair and tugged on a lock and she sighed and added, "I wish you two would just… stop pretending you aren't…"

Draco muttered, "You are a pushy little thing, aren't you?"

"Bossy, you said," she murmured. "Fishwife. Shrew."

Both men stared at the woman lying down and watching them until Theo turned Draco's chin slowly towards him and, with infinite, slow care, kissed the man. He could feel the shock, the way the other man stiffened before reaching out to cup his hand around the side of his neck, before he leaned into him. The languid exploration, the dipping back into memory and time and a friendship not yet tainted by fear and loss and war, went on until, both of them remembering the third person in the bed at the same time, they broke apart and stared, almost guiltily, at Hermione.

"Well," she said with what sounded like quite a bit of satisfaction. "It's about time."

"You aren't… upset?" Theo watched her warily. Even though she'd essentially goaded them into this he couldn't quite believe she was simply pleased about it.

"You planning on kicking me out?" she asked with what looked like a bit of a squashed grin.

Draco snorted at that and hauled her over onto his lap and kissed the tip of her nose. "Idiot girl. Of course not." She laughed and tipped her head back to look at Theo, who leaned in and brushed his lips across her. "Never. Never ever, love."

"Well then," she said, "carry on."

And they did.

. . . . . . . . . .

_**A/N **__– As always, thank you to everyone who gives me the gift of his or her time in reading this. _

_Many, many thanks to the people who take the extra time to review, namely: shealone, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, its-me-karla, lets make a scene, marianna79, JennyFelton (Don't worry, there'll be more Draco time coming), dulce de leche go, Analena, Artemisgodess, love-them-all10, thfourteenth, Ev'rdeen (whose poetry suggestion shall appear in a later chapter), Guest (Thank you so much!), Honoria Granger, itsamia71, Erin92486, pagyn, LadiePhoenix007, Grovek26, ladymagna1100 (a poetry free chapter for you!), Rose Davis_


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